


When The Crows Call

by Compromised_Coffee_Filter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cuddling, Cuddling & Snuggling, Danger, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, First Years are here for each other, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, How Do I Tag, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, OT5, On the Run, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, mentions of human trafficking, what am I doing with my life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 61,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27828508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Compromised_Coffee_Filter/pseuds/Compromised_Coffee_Filter
Summary: The journey home is long and perilous, and they only have each other. The memories of what really happened are both vivid and hazy, none of them are really sure.The Five of Them stick to each other like glue, for survival and a desperate grip on their own sanities.When the Crows Call, they always sing together.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei/Yachi Hitoka/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei, Hinata Shouyou/Yachi Hitoka, Hinata Shouyou/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei, Kageyama Tobio/Yachi Hitoka, Kageyama Tobio/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima Kei/Yachi Hitoka, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Yachi Hitoka/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 70
Kudos: 141





	1. YACHI - HAD THE GODS ABANDONED US?

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy here we go.

It was very dark and very, very cold. That coldness seeped through her skin, into her muscles and down into her bones- or whatever was left of them. The hands and legs she didn't even want to call her own anymore soaked up the freezing temperature like moss soaks up water, passing it into her inner muscles and into her core.

The wind howled around the small, abandoned church, whistling through the decaying cracks in the wooden walls and chasing away the otherwise uncanny silence. The darkness was so thick she could only see a dark-grey outline of the boarded up walls, the empty benches and columns and her own hands. The blizzard had been going on and on nonstop for hours now, screaming at the top of its lungs as if someone had pissed it off.

This place was so strange, so alien. Every sound echoed despite the smallness of the building. There weren't many catholic churches in Japan- and Yachi had never been to one. The cross hung above the altar, the paintings gathering dust, all of them covered with dirty white curtains. Like hanging ghosts or spirits. Everything else was gone.

The carved person hanging on the cross wasn't looking at her, but it was clear he was in terrible pain. Yachi felt sorry for him, as she did for this whole, hollow place. It was so different from the shrines back home, so different from that familiarity; yet there was a vibe to this place that made Yachi feel the safest she'd felt in a very long time.

Now she knew why people tended to hide in churches in moments of peril; this was a good place. A safe place... at least for the time being. They would eventually have to leave.

A shiver rocked her being, and she pressed herself further to Hinata's body in front of her. Despite the raging storm outside, he still radiated heat like desert sand, even though the chill was slowly getting to him too. He flinched when her cold nose bumped his jugular vein, but he eventually smothered himself in her hair, not even half-waking up. His arms only gripped her tighter, a freezing reminder that they too were not flesh.

They used to be. The skin on his palms used to be so rough and so worked, yet so soft at the exact same time. Yachi missed it, and couldn't help but think back to the feel of his hand in hers as he lead her to the train station where she announced she would become Karasuno's manager. Now all that was left was a cold metal alloy and permanent claws.

The wind howled louder, and Yachi shivered more.

How long was it now? They didn't manage to catch a date on their way here, but who knows if it was either a couple of weeks or a full-blown year, judging by the terrible winter weather. They'd left Miyagi in late December.... just three days before the year was about to come to a close. Or maybe they were simply in a place that was snowy all year round?

Another question which played around her head on repeat was why. Why was it them? It wasn't clear if they were specifically targeted or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the facts were what they were.

Yachi still remembered their last day in Miyagi clear as day.

It was when their last practice of the year had ended, and Daichi-san had assigned the first-years on clean-up and lock-up duty. Hitoka had stayed behind simply for company- her evening would just be as lonely as all the rest, as her mother was out on a business trip (again).

When they locked up (Daichi-san had given Tsukishima-kun the key because he deemed him to be the most responsible, and they left those keys outside the clubroom in their rightful place), they went down the road and past Ukai-sensei's shop.

Ever going down that route was the worst mistake the five of them had ever made.

Hinata, who had been bouncing a few feet in front with energy Yachi didn't know how he still had, suddenly stumbled over his feet like a drunk man, eyes going wide and so, so empty (Yachi had seen empty bottles which had been fuller than his eyes were then), before they closed and he collapsed onto his side.

Yachi flared with panic, rushing to his side, and as she called out his name a small but noticeable pain stung the side of her neck. She made to reach out to swat at the wasp which had stung her (why was a wasp awake in the winter anyway?), she really did, but her limbs had failed her. The sounds distanced, as if escaping away through an impossibly long train tunnel, her head spun wildly out of control, her vision splitting like a kaleidoscope before her consciousness winked out.

The memories of the events which followed were either blurs of colour, completely non-existent or so vivid to the point where she confused past with present. And even with all of those nasty experiences and new scars under her belt, the experience which had gotten to her the most was the one which happened less than twenty-four hours ago: Hinata running out from a cloak of flames, wild and screaming, before the smoke burned her from the inside out, as if the fire was a parasite that nestled in her lungs. The more she ran, the faster she had panted; and the faster she breathed, the more smog got trapped in her lungs. Her heart had nearly pounded out of her chest when she climbed that chainlink fence for dear life, blindly following the curls of olive-brown hair through the smoke, and holding fast when boom after boom rocked that fence violently back and forth.

She didn't remember anything else, and Yachi didn't really want to. She didn't remember how they managed to get away, or how they ended up in this small, shack-like chapel. It was just a relief to be anywhere other than that hellish Institution.

Maybe there  _ was _ somebody up there watching over them after all- and if there wasn't then they were pretty darn lucky.

There was movement, and a hoarse voice broke the shattered silence. "You're crying," Tsukishima pointed out with a rasp, and Yachi raised her head to look him in the eyes. They were still a little bloodshot from the repetitive Lasik surgery, but at the very least it was successful because his glasses were long gone.

The tall blonde was spooning Hinata from behind, chin on his shoulder and arms wound tightly around his torso, not letting him go. It would've been pretty strange-slash-funny under normal circumstances since Tsukishima avoided physical contact, Hinata, and physical contact from Hinata, but just not now.

"Sorry," Yachi apologised instantly, drying her eyes in the fabric of Hinata's hospital robe. Crying in such cold weather wouldn't do her any good, not if she wanted huge red welts upon her cheeks to go with everything else, just like jewellery no-one would ever buy.

The movement elicited a grumble from Kageyama-kun behind her, and he pressed his face further into her nape, mumbling something softly in his sleep. His leg twitched where it wrapped around hers, and it only made her press her face further into Hinata's neck in front of her.

Her head was throbbing.

"You shouldn't apologise," Tsukishima-kun whispered softly. "It's okay.... I can't sleep either." He sighed deeply. His whole body absolutely reeked of exhaustion and underlying pain, and Yachi felt her stomach lurch to her throat.

"Are... Are you still?" she stalled, tongue heavy and not cooperating with her distracted brain. How does she put the incident into words?

The tall blonde lifted his head when Yamaguchi-kun stirred behind him, sobbing for a moment before going quiet again. Was he dreaming? Tsukishima rested his head back down to reach over and brush her hair with his nose. "It'll be fine," he whispered again, the usual salty bite completely gone from his voice, replaced with a more soft alternative. "I'll get used to it."

Will he though? Will any of them ever get used to this? Will she ever get used to her entire body  _feeling so downright wrong?_  


These arms and legs which were posing as her own moved all too happily at her command, and it only made her want to throw up. They could never be her own, never ever. The metal that posed as her arms was so, so heavy. The fingers moved disgustingly smoothly, each tipped with a short talon. Short like a severed human nail, yet glisteningly sharp- if she were to prod at herself she'd definitely draw blood. The bandages that covered the stitches were slightly reddened and far too tight.

Her body crawled with wrongness, every nerve sending out repeated alarm signals that made her want to curl up and die.

"It'll be fine," Tsukishima repeated, and his face was wracked with tiredness, as if he was hovering on the border of sleep and wanted to cross it, but couldn't. It was an expression Yachi didn't see on him often, and it made her reach out to touch him. She reached out with her hand, but she hesitated. Would he even want it?

"Can I...?"

Tsukishima-kun all but leaned into the touch. "Go ahead," he sighed gratefully, and he closed his eyes as Yachi gently touched his cheek with the back of her hand, stroking it gently. The pressure of the solid was still picked up by her reattached nerves, but she could no longer feel the warmth, or the smoothness. It was as if it wasn't even there. What would it feel like for Tsukishima-kun?

She was about to ask him so, when his breathing steadied and his face tipped against Hinata's, who huffed out an 'urfff' under his weight, and finally settled into sleep.

Yachi just sighed and took her hand away. The wind outside howled again; a growl of a beast trying to tare down the roof. A couple of snowflakes drifted in, painstakingly white against the darkness. She was so tired...

She's fall asleep soon, judging how heavy her eyelids were. It was just a matter of when.

...'When' turned out to be a whole three hours later, when the wind subsided and the black had started to pale into a dark navy.

* * *

The next time she opened her eyes it was daylight. Cold and blue-hued and still freezing cold. Her head was still throbbing. What time was it?

It felt like someone was playing with an electric drill inside her skull. Her whole body was damp; the moisture worming its way into her bandages, into her stitches and between her legs. However in some sort of cruel twist, her mouth was completely dry. She tried to move her tongue and drink her own saliva, but it only wrecked her body through a painful coughing fit.

"Are y'okay?"

She jolted when she heard Yamaguchi-kun's whisper. Out of the five of them, Yamaguchi was the only one who's voice had changed after the Institution. His new voice only resembled his original one; now having that strange echoey metallic underlay edged into it, uncomfortably similar to a voice ripped straight from a vocaloid software. Thankfully the new voice wasn't used at all- Yamaguchi-kun simply whispered now, dragging out his words in a rough and hoarse desperation, as much as those stitches let him anyway.

She dislodged her head from the cramping position it was stuck against Hinata's throat, and she managed to twist her neck back to look at him.

He was already up on his feet, pacing down the alley between the wooden benches uneasily, heaviness hearable in every step. His skin was so pale it could almost match the snow outside, and his freckles were almost gone too. His shoulders, chest and limbs had all been replaced, as had one of his eyes- which gleamed a pale, antifreeze-coloured cyan. These changes also resulted in an odd power-shift within their group, as it turned out it was  _ Yamaguchi _ who was the strongest one of them all now, capable of overpowering the two alpha-like giants that were Tsukishima-kun and Kageyama-kun, even at the same time.

Yachi was thankful that a hospital robe covered his chest. If she saw that patchwork of stitches, blood and metal barely holding itself together again she'd throw up. She didn't even have anything in her stomach- could she throw up again?

"I'm fine," she assured him quietly, reaching down to pry away the metal claws which gripped her waist a little too tightly. It left some indents, but that wasn't really the worst thing in the world. With the death grip gone, she made an effort to sit up, surrogate spine wailing in agony as she moved. She didn't have an access to painkillers anymore, and maybe that was a good thing- getting addicted was the last thing Yachi needed right now. How long would it take for her spine to accustom? Her arms and legs just felt heavy now, but they didn't hurt... all that much anymore. She pressed a careful palm to her forehead, unable to read her temperature. "Are  _ you _ okay?"

Yamaguchi nodded slowly, the little strand of hair that usually pointed to the heavens now drooping down like a sad insect antenna. He huffed out a silent laugh and reached back to rub at his neck with a crook of the mouth that barely counted as a smile. The stitches in the front of his windpipe pulsed whenever he spoke- it look downright painful.

Just how much did it hurt him to speak?

He coughed before speaking. "Tsukki said there was a sign outside, he went to check it ou-out." He stumbled partially over his words when the stitches gave a particularly nasty heave.

Maybe Yachi would vomit after all.

She heaved herself up to stand, ignoring the wail of protest her aching body huffed out. Her head spun a little, but once stilled she managed to hobble over to him and biffed her head lightly against his metal shoulder. "Yamaguchi-kun, you're shaking," she pointed out quietly.

Yamaguchi stopped pacing, froze a little, before leaning in to rest his head against her temple. His skin was so smooth, like milk. "I'll be fine," he assured her quietly, and Yachi reached up to his touch. It was a little awkward, hands by their sides and stiff, but Yachi wished could just close her eyes and stay there forever. This was the only comfort she was allowed back in the Institution, where she'd spend entire hours just simply curled up with one or more of the others in complete and utter silence. Noise attracted unwanted predators; they'd learned that the hard way.

Her cough rocked him again, and he tilted his head in order to get a better look at her face. "Okay?" he asked.

Yachi just nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, just a little thirsty."

Yamaguchi-kun brightened at that, and he stepped away from her to start padding to the doors, and gestured with his head, requesting that she follow him. Yachi did so unsurely, trying to ignore the minimal prick of pain she felt in her legs with every step. They reached the doors, and as Yamaguchi reached for the rusty doorknob Yachi found herself wondering what the outside would look like.

It was definitely cold, she could feel the chill creeping into her body even if she hadn't stepped a foot outside. Was it super in-the-middle-of-nowhere? Or just at the edge of some forgotten street?

Yamaguchi heaved the door inwards, and Yachi's gasp caught in her throat.

It was beautiful.

In all the time Yachi had been alive, she had never seen such a beauty. The world was entirely white, covered in layers of snowy blankets and concrete made of ice, the taiga stretching out as far as the eye could see. There were hills, like the one they stood upon, but they were sparse and scarce, and not tall at all. And really far into the horizon, was the white forest.

But at the bottom of  this hill, there was a small town. Ant-sized people already scurried to and fro, going about their day-to-day lives, blissfully oblivious to metal limbs and prosthetic organs. She could hear the shouts of children from up here, and the occasional barking of dogs. And although the people were too far away for Yachi to properly make out any features, they seemed happy. Without a care in the world. She could see a couple of children playing in the snow on one of the fields closest to them, building a series of mini-snowmen. Were they safe? Were their families safe and loving? Were their lives... normal?

Her thought train was interrupted when she realised how incredibly cold it was. If she thought the inside of the church was bad, then she didn't know what this was. The wind was biting at her, leaving violent goosebumps in its wake as she began shaking.

Next to her, Yamaguchi knelt down to pick up two huge handfuls of snow, so fluffy like heavy clouds, before offering her some. "Frozen water," he elaborated quietly. "Tsukki's idea."

"Oh, thank you," she thanked him with a smile, before taking a bite of the watery candyfloss. Her teeth tingled a little, and the cold flowed down her throat, heroically taking away the dryness that had called her mouth home. The chill made her entire body jolt, and to comfort Yamaguchi's worried gaze she waved it off with a chuckle. "I used to eat snow when I was a little kid."

Yamaguchi-kun huffed a little genuine grin. "Same," he admitted as he also took a bite; as casually as if it was an apple. "Used to think this stuff was gourmet. My mum would always scold at me after." He stared off into the distance for a moment, and his cute crooked smile fell a little.

Yachi just rested her head against his arm, and didn't say a thing. She knew exactly what Yamaguchi was thinking. She didn't know if she  could say a thing to help.

Somehow the world seemed even colder than before.

They eventually decided that it was far too cold and to seek shelter in their church, which wasn't much warmer but better than nothing. And upon closing the door against the wind, they saw their little ginger sitting up, looking around frantically like an alert deer. When his wild eyes settled upon them, the tension in his body leaked out and he blew out a sigh of great relief. "There you are!" he called out, smiling lop-sidedly.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry," Yachi yelped; realising they'd made him panic by leaving. Oh god! How horrible was she? "I'm so sorry, so sorry-"

"'s okay," Hinata assured her, and he palmed at his own face before he looked down at Kageyama-kun still stubbornly clinging to his waist as he buried his face in his stomach. Hinata looked half-asleep as well, hair much more messed up thanks to a bedhead. He looked so soft, and Yachi couldn't help but give in to the urge to run up and hug him. So she did, and Hinata accepted her eagerly, let her cling to him as he clung to her in turn.

He was so warm.

"How're y'feeling?" Yamaguchi leant down to steal some of his warmth too. Yachi managed to hold onto his arms in a giant hug.

"Like I just took five consecutive spikes to the face," Hinata replied, before poking the setter still asleep against his thighs. "Oi, Bakayama, wake up-"

"Let him sleep," Yamaguchi told him gently, a hand pulling back his unruly ginger hair. It had grown over all this time- he hadn't. "He needs it."

"I'm not asleep," Kageyama mumbled against Hinata's body, pulling himself up but making no move to disentangle himself from the tiny middle blocker. His eyes were still closed as he rested his head in the crook where Hinata's neck met his shoulder, and he settled in. "Just cold."

Hinata reached out his hand as if wanting to pet his raven hair, but saw his claws in the obvious light of day, before he set it down again. Yachi didn't miss the blatant horror that snuck onto his face then, even if it was for a split second.

Nobody spoke for the next few moments, the four of them falling into their fragile silence. Silence was safe, but uncomfortable, especially now that it sounded so different than it used to.

The creak of the door tore that silence away, and the four of them immediately tensed on instinct- opening doors meant danger in the cruel Institution. But once Yachi remembered that this was not the Institution, the realisation sunk her into a bottomless pit of panic. Why was the door opening!? Did  _ they _ find them already!? No, no, she couldn't go back, they couldn't go back to Hell- they'd barely gotten away and-

"Tsukki?" Yamaguchi called out cautiously, words dull and without reverb. The chapel was much smaller in the daylight; the benches filled with termite-holes shorter and much less abundant, the white sheets covering the paintings dirty and grey. Even the person hanging on the cross looked less real, less life-like than the night before. He still looked just as saddened, though.

"Calm down, it's me," came Tsukishima-kun's muffled voice. The floorboards creaked, heavy footsteps getting closer and closer until the leaning door to the main hall groaned as it opened. Behind it stood Tsukishima, or at least what used to be him.

He still looked vaguely the same- tall, with curled pale-blonde hair and eyes round like perfect coins and golden just like them too; he still had the same face, same deadpan expression, but everything else was strikingly wrong.

He wore a pale-blue hospital robe, identical to the ones worn by all of them- and it did a splendid job in covering the stitches, unseen even when she tilted her head. But what she did see were the metal arms and legs which sprouted from beneath the robe, starling-black even in the blue light of a winter morning. They were horribly complex, as if whoever had designed them was trying to show off by making them way more complicated than they needed to be. They still moved upon his command, the wrists and ankles flexible even more than they had previously been, however they twitched with alarming ticks, sometimes unprompted, the artificial motor neurones not yet synchronised with Tsukishima's originally biological body.

It seemed stupid, but Yachi was afraid of them. She, alongside Yamaguchi and Hinata, also had a similar set of arms and legs- albeit starting from different points (hers started from the elbows and knees), it should be hypocritical to be afraid of the them, right?

"It's colder than the ninth circle of Hell outside," Tsukishima-kun complained, metal teeth gleaming behind his lips. He gripped the doorframe, fingers digging into the semi-rotted wood. He had a long scar that ran from one earlobe down to the point of his chin and up to the other- like the world's biggest smile.

"Did it start snowing again?" Yachi asked him, noting the snow he shook out of his pale hair.

Tsukishima grunted. "No, the trees just can't hold up after the storm." He staggered over, and Yamaguchi joined him on the foremost bench, while Yachi stayed with Hinata and Kageyama, leaning back against the altar.

"The sign," Yamaguchi huffed out the moment they sat down. "Where are we?"

Tsukishima clicked his tongue (how he didn't slice it completely off with his chattering teeth Hitoka didn't want to know), and slid a metal finger up his nose to push up the glasses that were no longer there. "It's in cyrillic," he growled out. "Problem is, I can't read cyrillic." He shook his head. "It doesn't narrow it down all that much- multiple countries have a language which uses cyrillic."

There was silence again, awkward and uneasy. Yachi fisted her hands into her robe, letting her head roll against her shoulder.

Trying to think seemed hopeless...

"So..." Hinata picked up again. "We really have no clue where we are?"

Tsukishima sighed deeply and shook his head again.

"At least we're out of there," Kageyama pointed out, evidently picking up on the vague distress in the air and taking it upon himself to be optimistic.

Tsukishima didn't even raise his hanging head. "We didn't get very far; if we don't figure something out, and fast, then those bastards will catch up and find us. I'm surprised they haven't already."

"I don't want to go back to the Institution," Hinata announced all of a sudden, making them all jump.

"None of us do," Yachi assured him. Her hand found his, and the jittery little sunshine managed to breathe out a slow, steadying breath.

"If they find us we won't have any choice," Tsukishima told them, forlornly.

Kageyama turned to snap at him; "I won't let them take us back. I'll... I'll- I'll fight them."

"And you plan on doing that how exactly?" Tsukishima barked back. "It's actually a miracle we managed to get away in the first place, an actual act of the gods! All of us combined are no match for those sons of bitches, so either we fight and die, or we go back and surrender and  maybe they'll let us live another day." His hands started to fist into his hair, just shy of pulling out the sandy locks.

"Those aren't our only options," Yamaguchi-kun's whisper assured them. "We don't've to chose if we keep moving."

"Where?" everyone asked all at once.

Yachi shuddered, not at all liking the idea of leaving this safe little church.  _ It won't be safe for very much longer _ \- she reminded herself. Yamaguchi was right. They had to go.

"There's names of cities written on that sign."

"Yeah, and?" Tsukishima replied. "It's not as if I know what those cities are."

"Not my point," Yamaguchi said. His hands kept fiddling with each other, the sound of metal against metal clinking hollowly, like the unoiled working of a machine. "I... figure if we manage to make it any city, we'll be able to get a rough idea where we are- and we'll be far more difficult to track down in a crowded area."

"While we look like this?" Kageyama gestured at himself, and tilted his arm so the wires that ran through his scarred skin glistened in the light which seeped through the cracked window.

"Hate to admit it, but I'm with the King on this one," Tsukishima said, completely ignoring Kageyama-kun's gobsmacked stare. "The city's got more eyes, and cameras too."

"And people don't like metal things," Hinata put in. "Won't we be mistaken for a robot uprising?"

Yachi clutched her robe a little tighter. "We  _ have _ to leave," she said desperately. "As soon as we can. I know this place is safe for now, but it might not be in a few minutes." Her gaze drifted towards the doorway again, fully expecting it to be busted through at any moment. "Even if it's for a city... we might have a greater chance of finding out where we are and how..."  _ how we can get back home . _

There was silence following her words, broken only by the sound of Yamaguchi standing up from his place on the creaking bench before beginning to pace along the alley.

"M-Maybe we could even get help," Yachi continued, words beginning to falter. Maybe she was stupid, and she was rambling off her head? What if she was so incredibly incompetent that she was just slowing them down? Maybe it'd be best if she went away-

"There's a factory down in the town we passed on our way here," Yamaguchi thankfully spoke up.

"There is?" Kageyama blurted.

"That's a factory?" Hinata said at the exact same time.

_ There's a factory here? _ Yachi didn't see one, nor did she remember...

"Yeah, and there have to be trucks delivering goods from there and stuff," said the pinch server, hands getting more and more frantic by the second. The voice took over his whispering, getting louder and louder with every shaking word. "If we can climb into the back of one of those, we could get a free ride to a city and we could be undetected and then they won't find us because they won't know, and we could buy ourselves some time and maybe even get help as Yachi said and-" his ramblings dissolved into a coughing fit, and Yamaguchi doubled over, frantically clawing at his throat.

Tsukishima moved that very instant, but it was Hinata who made it to him first. They both helped the pinch server sit down as he hacked breathlessly into his best friend's shoulder, the force of which shook his entire body. Tsukishima gathered him against his body, and snapped at Hinata to run outside and get some snow, to which Hinata stood to attention with a hand against his forehead, before running outside.

Yachi followed Kageyama as they paced over, though neither knew what to do, or if they could do anything at all. Yamaguchi coughed into Tsukishima's shoulder, before easing out slowly with deep breath after deep breath.

"Stupid, don't overexert yourself," Tsukishima scolded him after her breathed a sigh of relief. His metal hand combed through Yamaguchi's long hair, and the latter simply fell into him, closing his eyes against the world, but not before whispering out a quiet;

"Sorry Tsukki."

"I've got the snow!" Hinata announced as he bounced back with two huge talonfuls of snow; pure white untouched snow- quite unlike the one next to a road. He offered it to them tenderly. "You're a genius Tsukishima-san!"

"Stop, you complementing me is strange," mumbled Tsukishima, reaching out to take some before offering it to Yamaguchi. "You're horrifically dehydrated."

"And I got us some too," Hinata mentioned, dumping the snow onto Kageyama's waiting hands, before offering some to Tsukishima. "You too, Tsukishima. You'll die if you don't!"

"I know that, moron."

Kageyama snaked under Tsukishima's arms like a concerned dog, and wrapped himself around Yamaguchi like a huge anaconda. Tsukishima just adjusted to let Kageyama settle between them without even so much as a word of objection. Hinata quickly joined them, and Yachi let herself follow their lead. They wrapped themselves in each other, and Yachi made sure to keep tabs on Yamaguchi's breathing.

_In case it stops suddenly. Nope- bad thought. Don't think about that . _

She closed her eyes and tipped her head forward, sighing for a moment before opening them again.

Though the pale light was gone. Instead, a dim orange light covered them, darkening rapidly. Was this sunset or sunrise?

Yachi grimaced at the sudden quietness, and decided to scowl and be annoyed at it. What time  _ was _ it? With a grunt she shook her head, attempting to clear it. She was very familiar with the unnatural way her head swam as she was coming out of the anaesthesia's influence, not like through water, but, like, through tar or something. It should be... a few more hours should wash it out completely, if she remembered correctly. If only she knew how long those hours were in the first place. She shook her head again, but only achieved to drown herself more.

"-chi?"

Yachi blinked again, and found herself face-to-face with Hinata's pretty amber eyes. They used to burn- those eyes, as if they held an entire flaming forest within them. Nowadays that fire was nothing but cold dark ashes.

"Are you awake?"

"I'm awake."

He smiled, then looked to the door. "I've been awake for quite a while... and I've been thinking. You saw the village down the hill, right?"

Yachi nodded, only taking in about half of what Hinata had just said. Going to sleep seemed like such a good idea.

"We should get ourselves some clothes," Hinata reasoned smartly. "We'll be warm and no-one will mistake us for the Terminators."

"How would we even get clothes?" Yachi wondered aloud, and Kageyama-kun snorted in his sleep, punctuating Yachi's point before pushing his head further into Tsukishima's armpit. When did he go to sleep?

"Like... stealing."

Yachi's eyes blew wide, and she woke up just a little more.

"Stealing!?"

"Stealing." Hinata repeated seriously- the most serious he'd ever been with something that was not volleyball. "Just clothes, and maybe some money." He nodded slowly. "I'm willing to do it. Besides, I'm small. I can sneak through a vent or something."

"Are you out of your mind!?" Yachi screeched as quietly as she could. "You can't just go take things from innocent people's houses!"

"We're desperate. We can't go on dressed in just rags." Hinata shook his head. "I'll be back before Tsukishima wakes up," he assured her.  _ Why is he so pumped at the idea of breaking and entering? _

"Hinata, please, think this through-"

"I did think things through," Hinata insisted. His hand found hers, and he squeezed it encouragingly. "You said so yourself, Yachi-san, we have to get out of here."

"And what if you're caught?"

"I won't be."

"But what if you are?"

Hinata breathed out a shaking breath. "It won't matter. What matters is that we can finally  _ do something _ . We're not helpless anymore."

Yachi didn't reply, instead she pressed herself forward to his torso. She could feel his metal ribcage rearing out of his chest like a witch's fingers, and tried to ignore that. There was no changing his mind now. Idiot, idiot Hinata, there's a reason people say that there's a fine line between bravery and stupidity.

"I'm going with you." The moment those words left her mouth Yachi knew she was going to regret it, but if Hinata was going to play hero, someone had to make sure he didn't die. "To go break into people's houses, I mean. If we don't hurt anyone, we should be good."

She was going to get arrested. Then the police would have them, and then the Institution staff would figure it out and get them and-

"Yessss," Hinata hissed in triumph. He detached himself from the tangle of metal, before helping her to her feet. The movement stirred the tall middle blocker, who they'd all found out was an incredibly light sleeper.

"Where you going?" Tsukishima-kun mumbled, slowly blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

"We'll be back soon," Hinata promised, splaying out his dangerous fingers so he patted the blonde head with only a gentle palm. "Don't'cha worry."

And apparently Tsukishima-kun was already slipping back into unconsciousness, because that was enough for him. He murmured an agreement before he tipped back, pulling his two dark-haired compadres behind him, neither waking so much as a wink when they collapsed on the dark wood floor.

They looked comfortable, and the looming shadow of anaesthesia beckoned Yachi to rejoin them, fall asleep and never wake again.

Hinata's hand tugging on hers convinced her otherwise.

* * *

It wasn't until she was stepping between houses did Yachi realise that she may have not thought this through.

The sun had long set, and the sky was pitch black. There were no stars, no lights from the houses either. Yachi could barely see where she was going, and she jumped every time a dog started barking in the distance. The alien houses loomed in on the two of them from both sides, the metallic echo of their footsteps on ice-covered asphalt knocking on her skull. Her rapid breaths came out in puffs of vapour, and the cold was biting at her skin like thousands upon thousands of piranhas, her teeth chattering just like a piranha's too. So cold. So cold. So cold. If only her robe had longer sleeves.

Yep. Hinata was correct about getting clothes. She could already feel herself going numb.

"W-w-w-we should h-hurry," she urged, huffing air into metal hands, before realising it was like trying to put out the sun with a water gun.

"I-I-I-I know," Hinata stammered. He turned to smile at her however, his teeth glisteningly sharp. "Think of i-i-it like a m-mission."

That got Yachi to put on her brave face and push on.

They chose the house nearest to them, cringing when the unoiled hinges of the garden gate screamed, a yappy mutt started to bark close by in reply. For a while they didn't move, fearful that light would suddenly shine on them, however the darkness remained intact.

She followed Hinata towards the house, which lay like a sleeping dragon, if awaken would snarl and swallow them whole. It was an old house, made of wood just like the church atop the hill, but much more sturdy, much more cared for. A little bit like a twisted version of those snowy cottage houses you'd see on Christmas cards.

Movement caught her attention, and for a while she stood like a deer in headlights trying to figure out what it was. She stared at it before the wind blew again and the laundry line made itself known.

"Hinata!" She called quietly, grasping at his arm and pointed. "The laundry line!"

"Huh?" he said intelligently, but the sight of their goal had given Yachi an odd energy-boost. She pulled Hinata behind her to the wafting clothes, the crunch of snow beneath their feet fuelling her to bound on forward.

The moment she was close enough, she reached up and tore a long-sleeved shirt off the line, and without hesitating she pulled it over her head. It did absolutely nothing against the cold, but the fabric against her skin was like a flipping switch in her mind.

The first proper item of clothing she had worn in a very, very long time... Yachi had forgotten what it was like being civilised, wearing something proper and not a dinky hospital robe that almost never got washed. The fabric smelled of vaguely-flowery laundry detergent, and for a moment Yachi forgot that the shirt wasn't hers. She forgot she was freezing, standing in a stranger's yard with the full intent of stealing their clothes.

She was wearing clothes. She was human.

"-chi! We n-need to hurry." Hinata's chattering words brought her back from her confusing moment of self-reflection. He said something else, but he mumbled through the sentence and Yachi couldn't understand. His breathing bordered on urgent hyperventilation as he stepped into trousers which were far, far too big for him. Yachi snapped to instant attention, helping him pull any and all items off the line they could find, throwing it onto themselves or clutching it to their chests when that no longer became an option.

Was it enough? Were all these random pieces of cloth enough for all of them? She didn't think she could carry any more, and the line above them was barren. A cold wind blew past, and Yachi almost bit her tongue on her chattering teeth. She was shivering so much she seriously worried she wouldn't make the returning journey.

_ No. No no no. You have to. Be determined- you are not Townsperson B anymore. You are a protagonist now. Protagonists always win, no matter the danger._

Her body jolted once, twice, thrice, the chill was cracking like a whip. She tried to get Hinata's attention, but her lips wouldn't move. Her neck wailed as she looked at him, and he was looking at her in turn.

Yachi wished his eyes' dying embers would at least give her some warmth. It took her another second to recognise the sheer panic in them, how they pulsed with a creeping sense of dread.

And Yachi agreed with him.  _ You're right. We have to get out of here. _

Hinata once again lead the charge, though his legs could no longer bounce like a fawn's, and instead dragged stiffly, leaving behind gashes in the snow instead of footprints. For a moment Yachi panicked that the homeowner would follow them up to their hiding place, but comforted herself that by morning they should be long gone.

The gate creaked once more, and another dog started to bark. Yachi didn't look back, but picked up her pace to pad side-by-side with the redhead. The air was freezing, it crippled her lips and whipped at her lungs so bad it hurt.

It was so cold. It was so cold. It was so cold.

She pressed the pile of cold clothes to her chest and huffed out a puff of white breath. She snuggled into her precious shirt, trying to shy away from the air. Hoar frost was starting to form on her eyelashes, and her sight was blurring.

They slinked out of the neighbourhood, passing the cyrillic-sign, following their footsteps and started to climb up the hill. There were still stairs leading up to the church, but they were crumbling in disrepair and overgrown with dead, shrivelled brambles, untouched for years upon years. Yachi whimpered quietly when her legs screamed in protest as she lifted them to walk. There was rime on her prosthetic limbs, so thick the black metal was covered in a sheet of white.

Her head was throbbing.

Yachi had seriously started to panic when her efficient fake legs refused obedience. She stopped walking, even though she could see the outline of the pretty church through her blurring eyes. The cold was starting to go away, her skin tingling before going entirely numb.

She was going to freeze to death. She was going to die.

A body snuck under her arm, hoisting her up onto his back. Hinata tried to smile at her, the corner of his lips snaking. Even in the darkness Yachi could see the blue of his skin and the frost lining his eyes and hair and nostrils. He pulled her up onto himself and continued to climb on.

His body was cold.

Yachi managed to hold on, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder, trying not to worry about Hinata also slowing down, though pushing stubbornly on.

He got to the final step before he stopped, swaying before he gave out, letting them both fall face-first into the snow.

It suddenly got hot. So, so hot. She should cool down, strip off her clothes and cool down...

* * *

"Were you two out of your fuckin' minds!?"

It was the first thing Yachi woke up to, still cold and still shivering, but alive. She breathed out, her lungs comfortable and no longer making her wish for death. There was a quiet warmth bursting gently from her right side, fabric and wool wrapped around her tightly like a cocoon.

Someone else moved from her left, shifting uncomfortably but silently. The body leaned into her, nuzzling a cold nose into her cheek. She hummed, deciding to be silent for now. 

"For the love of all things holy, think like a normal human being before you decide to go on a suicide mission!" She recognised Tsukishima-kun's voice, although it louder and jaggeder than usual, a tone she hadn't heard him use before. It took her a while to recognise the distress and anger in his voice, and she furrowed her eyebrows for a moment; that was weird, Tsukishima-kun didn't yell, not even when provoked- she then remembered Hinata telling her how Tsukishima had spouted verbal diarrhoea at him when he snuck into Shiratorizawa a lifetime ago.  _ Ah, this is what he must've sounded like _ , she decided as Tsukishima continued to yell.

"It's a minus temperature out there, and it's even colder in the fucking night! Is life not dear to you!? You're both idiots! Complete idiots!"

"Tsukki, calm down," Yamaguchi's stern but soft order cut him off. He shifted on Yachi's right, his metal hands tenderly dragging her tangled hair out of her face. It used to be partially tied back with a starry blue hair-tie, one which she had been wearing since she was five. Yachi had traded her pair of plastic earrings (which in turn lead to her new piercings closing up and she was too much of a wimp to go through the pain and fear of having an earring gun pointed at her again) for that hair-tie on the elementary school playground. She was no longer friends with the girl she traded with as they naturally grew apart with coming years, but it was still a treasured possession of hers.

It was taken and burned at the Institution. With the rest of her things; her clothes, her schoolbag and anything that had been in it; textbooks and jotters, stray drawings and sketchbooks, bento with unfinished lunch, student ID and phone. She had watched those things burn in one big heap, and the bitter memory brought tears to her eyes.

Yachi zoned back in when her ears decided to focus on the pacing footsteps.

"Still dark," she heard Yamaguchi-kun point out to the pacing party, a hopeful tint to his voice. "We could make it to the factory and get out've here."

"Have you not heard a single word I just said!?" Tsukishima yelled back at him, his voice cracking halfway through the sentence. "Those two knuckle-heads almost froze to death out there, no way am I letting any of you out there again."

"Didn't you go out to check the sign?" Kageyama-kun piped up.

Tsukishima made an internal-screaming noise. "I was out there for literally two minutes; we can't make it to your fuckin' factory in two minutes!"

"Please don't fight," Hinata whispered weakly, shifting at her left. "I'm sorry."

"We're just worried," Yamaguchi offered. Yachi can feel him reach over her bowed head to stroke Hinata's cheek. The more he spoke in that whisper the more Yachi missed his voice.

The moment she tried to say something, her tongue betrayed her and the only thing she managed to do was cough.

"Yachi! Yachi, Yachi," she could hear Hinata mumble, his limbs snaking around her as if they wanted to touch as much of her as possible. "You're awake, you're alive!"

Yachi coughed out once more before finally convincing her tongue to work for her once more. "I'm... fine. Just c-cold."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Hinata was apologising as he buried his head into her neck, and Yachi finally managed to pry open her eyes, tearing off a few frozen eyelashes in the process.

"Not your fault." She smiled at him. It was still dark and difficult to see, but the turquoise light emitted from Yamaguchi-kun's false eye was kind and let her see his face. He was still shivering, but breathing and alive, and Yachi couldn't resist hugging him in return.

Tsukishima's limbs clicked when he squatted down to her level. A scowl painted his handsome face. "Yachi, you're a birdbrain," he hissed at her. "Next time you nearly get yourself killed I'll kill you myself."

Yachi's eyes widened at his threat, but Yamaguchi beat her to the punch. He grimaced at his best friend. "Are you done yelling?" He exaggerated his sigh before nailing Yachi and Hinata with his own look. "He's right. Don't hurt yourselves like that again."

Hinata smiled sheepishly while Yachi looked at her knees.

"At least we have clothes now," Kageyama put in, narrowing his eyes at the best friends. He stuck his raven head between Yachi and her partner in crime. "Thanks."

"At least  you appreciate it," Hinata huffed and patted his hair affectionately. They both needed haircuts- it was getting into their eyes. He didn't seem to be as affected at the scolding as Yachi was; though Hinata had more experience with getting reprimanded, she rationalised.

"Are we going?" Kageyama asked and looked up at Yamaguchi with a questioning gaze. "Are we getting out of here or not?"

That seemed to convince Yamaguchi, for he got up and dusted off his robe with both hands. "We're going," he confirmed with a firm nod. "No time to lose."

Thank goodness.

Letting out a breath of relief, Yachi handed Tsukishima-kun a shirt that was wrapped around her torso. Thank whichever one of them had bundled them up, it wasn't freezing anymore.

For that moment, her brain truly cleared, and she felt light. She drew in a breath as she stood up, and for just second, she knew that everything was going to be okay.

Tsukishima's joints clicked once more as he stood up. "Okay," he gave in, pulling the shirt over his head, surprisingly being a bit  _ big _ on him. "But," he got their attention again. "We all stick together- or else everything will get worse."

Yachi made a noise of agreement, and the three boys nodded in unison.

It took them a few minutes to get ready, wrapping their stolen goods around themselves as tightly as was possible, leaving no room for the chilly air to snake underneath and bristle against skin. Yachi looked back at the abandoned church.

Such a sad, safe place. She didn't think any place would've appeared welcoming when it was in decay, but Yachi found herself almost saddened to leave its warmth. She gave the man hanging on the cross a thankful smile, before turning to follow her boys.

* * *

Yamaguchi-kun was right when he said there was a factory, Yachi wondered how she could've missed it. The series of buildings was massive, and it was undoubtedly bigger than the entirety of Karasuno's school grounds. It was well lit up, and the logo was plastered over one of the walls. From the logo, Yachi deducted that it looked like a food company, though she wasn't all that great at assuming things.

They trekked down the hill single-file, Yamaguchi leading the charge and the other three close behind her. They did not speak, and moved onward swiftly.  _ Just like the Samurai _ , she thought to herself.

The black sky was beginning to pale into navy, and Yachi pulled the hood up of her new hoodie. Her golden hair would stick out like a sore thumb if the sky got too bright. The paling sky got Yamaguchi to speed up his steps, and yet Yachi had no trouble keeping up with him. Her legs still hurt, but now that they had unthawed, and she was using them for something other than slow walking, she realised that those legs were stronger than she thought. They propelled her onwards without a hint of flaw, working steadily like clockwork. Even when Yamaguchi slowly transitioned into a jog, then a run, she kept up with him.

It freaked her the hell out; she'd seen the intense workout these boys had undergone for the entirety of their schoolyear and before, not only were they durable, but they were also very strong and very fast (especially in Hinata's case, she knew that firsthand). Yachi would've never gotten on their level. Boys are biologically stronger than girls, it was why sports were split up in the first place.

Yet here she was, steadily running with the four of them as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Not that she was complaining; this was great and getting left behind was a thousand times worse, it was just that... it would've been different if she had actually gained this strength fairly. Just having it was suddenly... unsettling.

Yachi shook the thought from her head and ran on.

They ran for a couple more minutes, the cold air whisking hair back and beating into their exposed faces, there was a steady crunching of snow under their feet. Yamaguchi only began to slow down when they reached the almost-full car lot.

"Oh, that smells good," Kageyama suddenly said with a sigh.

Yachi whipped round to give him a quizzical look; the only thing she smelt was metal and snow. She wasn't the only one, but as usual it was Hinata who called him out on it. "What do you mean? What smells good?"

"The factory," Kageyama pointed to the building. "They bake bread there."

"You can smell that?" Tsukishima echoed in disbelief.

"Yeah," the raven-hair replied naturally, returning the glare.

Unlike the rest of them, Kageyama was not fitted with external prosthetics. Instead, most of his internal organs had been replaced by Institution alternatives, his scarred outsides fortified by metal plates and countless of metal wires running through his skin. Who knows what else they fitted him with? 

Like the rest of them though, he was damaged beyond repair.

Yamaguchi yawned, with ended in a little cough. "Come on, sure that smell will lead us to an open truck."

The mist had began to rise, and the yellow lights against the dark sky reminded Yachi of that one time she was travelling to the airport late at night to make it for an early morning flight.

Yamaguchi chose the nearest truck, and fiddled with the back doors for a while before dragging one door open. At that moment the scent of fresh bread hit her in the face, and she agreed 100% with Kageyama that it did in fact smell good.

"Told you." Kageyama lightly elbowed Tsukishima, who only rolled his eyes.

They wasted no time climbing into that truck, beelining for the very back of the metal drum. In a few short minutes they had hollowed out a little nest between the plastic and cardboard packages. It was cramped with the five of them packed into that tiny space, but ultimately Yachi was comfortable. At first she'd wanted to refuse Kageyama's proposal of eating some of the dry crackers and whatever else this truck carried; her stomach had long since dried to the back of her spine, but with some coaxing from Yamaguchi she managed to swallow a couple of mouthfuls. She didn't even register the taste. Tsukishima and, surprisingly, Hinata, had also put up a fight about eating, but both eventually relented.

The shadow of anaesthesia reminded her that she wanted to sleep. How could she argue? If she could pass out again, that would be wonderful.

So she didn’t argue, and let herself tip back into nothing.


	2. TSUKISHIMA - NOTHING SEEK, NOTHING FIND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

Tsukishima was panicking. He had just woken up in a tiny windowless room and had no recollection of how he'd gotten there or why he was there in the first place. He was still clad in his school uniform, his schoolbag tipped over with his things littered out on the cold floor. The room was small, devoid of all colour, with a single flickering fluorescent light buzzing so loudly on the ceiling.

This couldn't have been a nightmare, it was too real, too life-like. Tsukishima's heart was pounding in his ears as he paced round and round that room, bobbing his head like an animal in a zoo cage. He tried to slow his hyperventilating breaths, at least enough for him to rationalise his situation.

His scattered thoughts were interrupted when weeping reached his ears. Tsukishima's stomach lurched when he realised he recognised that cry.

That was Yamaguchi's voice.

He ran up to the steel door keeping him in. He was not surprised to find it locked, so he instead he pressed his face to the barred opening trying to look outside. The corridor was the same as the room; grey, windowless and claustrophobic. Yamaguchi's quiet cries came from the right.

"Yamaguchi?" he called quietly, and then again a little bit louder.

There was shuffling, as well as the desperate breathing and sobs got closer, and Tsukishima wanted to wail too.

"Tsukki!? Tsukki! Is that you!? Are you there!?"

"I'm here, I'm here," he assured his best friend, trying to angle his head to catch a glimpse of him, but alas it was in vain. He instead snaked his arm through the bars, grasping at the wall splitting them up. His fingers scratched uselessly at the granite bricks for a while before soft fingers touched his. Tsukishima desperately grasped onto that hand, and the hand did the same.

"Where are we?" Yamaguchi sobbed out quietly. "What happened, where are we?"

"I don't know," Tsukishima stammered out truthfully, squeezing the warm hand for comfort. "I don't know. Are you hurt?"

"No, no. Are you?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine."

He felt Yamaguchi thread their fingers together, and he pressed his head to the bars, still gazing out into the corridor. This was a bad place, Tsukishima didn't know how he knew- he just did.

"They've scattered my things," Yamaguchi continued, if only to talk over the buzzing of the lights which was slowly driving his nerves to madness. "I have my phone."

"Can you call for help?" Tsukishima asked, hopeful.

"I've tried already, multiple times; there's no signal. Not even 119 gets through."

Fuck.

Tsukishima was about to say something to comfort him, when something caught his eye. He whipped his head to look in the other direction of the corridor, and his blood ran cold.

There was a person standing there, deathly still; his chest didn't move, nor did his eyelids. His face... Tsukishima couldn't describe it, even though it was burned into the lining of his retinas. There was something  horribly wrong with the person's face, an impression of deformity without any distinguishable malformation, yet at the same time so incredibly  _ ordinary _ .

The person smiled, and at that moment Tsukishima felt an intense, true fear that he had never felt before.

He screamed.

And bolted awake.

His body lurched violently forward, and his body threatened to rip itself apart with the sudden movement. His breaths came as shallow gasps as his sight cleared to focus the stacks of bread and bakes. His body tried to catch up as his mind tried to figure out what was going on, and after a long, long while, he managed to remember where he was.

The bakery truck, bumping a little as it drove. Wisps of pale light seeped in through the cracks, occasionally cutting off when they passed under presumably a bridge or a viaduct. The wind howled lowly but gently, and the quiet pitter-patter let him know that it was snowing again. This wasn't the Institution.

Tsukishima drew in a long deep, shaking breath, holding it for a while before letting himself gasp out and wiped at his eyes.

He was safe, he was out of there.

He'd knocked some cardboard boxes over, but their nest was still holding up, and the other four were still passed out completely. Yamaguchi still had his arms wrapped around his waist as his face nuzzled into his stomach, and Tsukishima tangled his hand in his olive locks, trying to keep himself steady. He took deep breath after deep breath, squeezing his eyes closed before daring to look again.

Quite a large part of him feared that this was a dream; that he was just making up hopeful fantasies in an attempt to keep a fraction of sanity, still chained down in the endless buzzing halls of the Institution.

Tsukishima still had trouble believing that they had made it out in the first place. The Institution was the birthplace of nightmares, a place who's existence was a crime to humanity, and  _ he had been in there _ .

Getting out of there seemed impossible; his and Yamaguchi's escape plots nothing but false hope, something to merely hold onto. But when the window of opportunity came, they had a plan ready to go. They took that opportunity on a whim without any hesitation, even though Yachi and Kageyama were heavily sedated and could barely process what was going on. Hinata took his setter and started a fire in the boiler room, giving the others time to shut down the electrical power to the building, eliminating the security systems and the electrical fence. However they'd miscalculated how large a gas leak explosion actually is.

It had been the biggest fire Tsukishima had ever seen, the flames engulfing everything in those corridors. They had to run, and they didn't stop.

And they made it.

Tsukishima couldn't believe it. He dragged in deep sigh, assuring himself that they had made it, they had gotten out of there.

They just had to keep this up. Keep their heads down and keep moving.

He took one final breath and reached over to grab himself a packet of pretzel sticks, taring it open and shoving six into his mouth at once. The salt was welcoming, so was the crunch beneath his teeth. They tasted like salty pocky, without the chocolate coating; Tsukishima decided that he liked them.

Food at the Institution was tasteless, Tsukishima could not for the love of life remember what he ate back there. Eating was just another job to be performed, after all.

He chowed down another seven.

Everything was slowing down now. They ran, and even when they took shelter in that church everything felt as if he were travelling at mach speed. They still needed to run. Now that they were running, there was nothing to do.

And that gave him time to think.

Yachi had a mental breakdown earlier, weeping about wanting to go home. He doubted she remembered it; Yachi tended to become extremely forgetful when recovering from anaesthesia, to the point where she forgot entire days, but her freakouts were still as vivid as ever.

Tsukishima wanted to go home too. He'd assured her and himself that they were going home, but now that desire to return was bordering on pain.

What pain did he cause his mother by disappearing? God, what kind of a son was he? He remembered how hard it was for her to adjust to Atikeru leaving for college. The first thing he was going to do was apologise. The second thing, he'd hug her and never let go. He'd cry like a little kid into her shoulder, but at least he'd be home.

Ah, home.

Tsukishima could see it in his mind's eye, clear as day. The tiny building with the cherry blossom tree, and that backyard with the basketball hoop that was older than he was. The familiar vestibule, the warm kitchen, where mum would try out increasingly fancy recipes which she'd gotten from her friends at the restaurant she worked at. She'd smile at him when he'd come in, tease him about being a sugar-addict or something or other, then playfully scoff as he'd slink back to his room, to his music and shelves full of dinosaurs.

He missed his mother. He missed that house and his room. Did it still look the same as he'd left it? What about Atikeru? Was he okay? Would he still lurk about the living room whenever he came home from college? Did he finish college already? They'd just patched things up... would he ever see his face again? He missed him too.

And he missed Karasuno too. That school, that gym, home away from home, even though he'd rather inhale mustard gas than admit it. The sound of volleyballs hitting the floor, voices calling to each other, offering complements and advice, the inane shit their stupid quartet would get up to; he missed scoffing at that. Ukai-sensei would always yell at them, tell them to be quiet, then turn around and start pointing out something someone else needed to fix, and Ennoshita-san would be always be able to tell what was going on through any kohai's head. Tsukishima would most likely stand by Azumane-san, both in a comfortable silence or occasionally exchanging soft remarks to each other while blocking side-by-side. Were their senpais alright? How was Azumane-san? Ennoshita-san? Did the third-years graduate already? Did they go to the Nationals? How did they do in them?

...The five of them had missed Nationals completely.

Yachi snorted in her sleep, breaking off his train of thought and preventing him from spiraling any further.

_ We  _ are _ going home. _

He licked the salt off his lips, before deciding he couldn't stomach anything more and shoved the packet of food aside. They should really fill any pockets they had with this food, who knew how long they were going to go without encountering food again?

And they should really plan out what they were going to do when this truck eventually stopped. This wasn't going to be an endless journey, nor were stowaways welcome. He had to figure something out, and fast. The way home was going to be more difficult than most, but they had to manage it.

They had to.

That was how Tsukishima started to plan. He lay his chin against a box and stared into empty space, trying to pan out everything in a coherent manner. His eyelids were heavy, and his head was tired, but if Tsukishima stopped focusing, he'd start spiraling again.

The ability to intensely focus, even in stressful situations, was always one of Tsukishima's strongest assets, and he found it to be a rather soothing turn for comfort. Get his mind away from thinking about... harder matters.

So when his tired mind could no longer think, he resigned himself to focusing on the steady sound of the truck's wheels crunching the snow beneath its wheels.

Going back to sleep wasn't really the best course of action- someone needed to stand guard incase something happened. It might as well be him, he wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon, especially when the faces of the Institution's staff were waiting for him every time he closed his eyes-

_ Focus on the sound of the snow. Don't think about that. If all goes well you'll never have to see them again. _

Tsukishima must've sat there for hours on end, cramping from staying in that same position but not daring to move, lest he wake the others. Hinata had at one point started sobbing in his sleep, and Tsukishima had stroked his hair so the distressed tangerine would calm down, and kept at it long after he lulled back into a restful sleep.

He perked up when the van definitely slowed, and pulled himself from their nest to the little crack where the light seeped in. Despite the stinging cold, Tsukishima pressed his eye against it.

The van was pulling up to what looked like another massive carpark of a supermarket, in a city just as colourless as a black-and-white photograph. The wind was still howling.

It took Tsukishima another moment to register that this meant the end of their journey, and he raised the alarm. They were all up on their feet in mere moments, and the very instant the truck stopped they streaked out of the doors like bats out of hell, and didn't stop until they slithered into the dark alleyway between two buildings.

A dark alleyway. In an unfamiliar, possibly hostile city, and Tsukishima realised that his plan had fallen apart before it even got the chance to be useful. He really did  not think this through.

They had no choice. They began walking.

This part of the city was a little like the bottom of a murky swimming pool. The rushing sounds of the cars was muffled by the tall buildings which reached up to the dark grey sky. The entire place looked fuzzy too, and so, so dark, the only source of light were the faulty streetlamps, the many yellow lights spilling from the windows of the apartments above, and the faint glow of Yamaguchi's prosthetic eye.

It was too loud, and Tsukishima had his heart thudding in his ears. He pressed himself to Kageyama's side, and the King snaked an arm around his waist.

Most of the stores they passed were closed at this hour, only the flickering hot-pink neon signs of what Tsukishima could only assume were sex-shops were still on. The alleys they wandered aimlessly were completely barren, with no signs of life other than the crows that had perched on the telephone wire above. Their croaks echoed dully in the night, a somber song.

That first night they cramped into the narrow space between two industrial black bins in a dead-end alleyway. It stank of garbage and piss and god knows what else, and Tsukishima didn't sleep a wink.

The second day followed in the same, miserable manner. They walked as long as they could, looking for god knows what. Tsukishima knew that he should get his head down, but he could not shake the feeling that the whole world was staring at him. The concrete was cold and painful, and there was no place to pee.

They learned fast enough to stay away from the overpasses, since there were always groups of people there, and just at a glance he could tell they were all either drunk, on drugs or both.

The faces of this city's people, with their sharp and slender features, were very different from the familiar broad, flattened faces back home. They had emotionless eyes- but those weren't new at all.

That night went a little bit better; the exhaustion got the better of him this time, and Tsukishima ended up passing out on Yachi's chest. He slept for a couple of short hours before the horrible face, that agonising hybrid of mutation and corrective surgery gone wrong, tore him awake again.

He panicked, flailing for a moment before his mind caught up and he assured himself once more that this was not the Institution.

But was their current situation really better? He had a bed in the Institution, it wasn't freezing, and he could at least practice basic hygiene-  _ for fuck's sake _ is he really longing to go back to hell!? They're the reason that he had the permanent taste of metal in his mouth! They're the reason they're homeless-

It was that moment when it really hit him. They were  homeless . In an unfamiliar city in a foreign country that speaks a language they don't understand, and with nowhere to go.

_We're going to rot to death here._  


* * *

"I found somewhere!"

Tsukishima raised his head sharply from Yamaguchi's thigh, and tried to blink out the water from his eyes. Hinata looked like a beaten chimney sweep, had bags under his eyes and an ungodly amount of grease in his hair. The Institution had wiped the cheer from his face, and Tsukishima dully wondered if Hinata would ever smile again.

All those times he was smiling and Tsukishima took that for granted. What he wouldn't give to have Hinata smile at him again, even if it was just once.

What he wouldn't give to go back home.

"What?" Yamaguchi whispered at him. His words were barely loud enough to be heard over the rushing of cars.

Hinata gestured behind himself with a thumb, a metal hand peaking out from the woollen sleeves. "I found a place we can stay in, at least for a while." His body jolts from the cold. "It's out of sight and empty, so it should be good."

"Place on the street?"

"No. I found shelter."

_ Hinata's an actual godsend _ , Tsukishima decided. Thank the heavens, he was worried they wouldn't be able to survive another night out in the open- if the filthy looks the other homeless folk were giving them were anything to go by. Tsukishima was sure the only thing keeping them from confrontation was probably the fact that they hung around in a group of five, and the junkies realised that they'd have a numbers advantage should anyone try to pick a fight.

Not all of them were hostile though, Tsukishima's been offered cigarettes and heroine, on two different occasions... Yeah, getting out of sight would be a blessing.

His head spun when he stood up, and collided into Yamaguchi's shoulder who helped him remain on his feet.

"Don't," Yamaguchi hushed at him. "You're dehydrated- you've been crying all morning." He coughed again. "Please, take care of yourself."

"Didn't need to be reminded, thanks," Tsukishima dryly replied, though he made sure to press his head lightly against Yamaguchi's. "We need to get Yachi and Kageyama- they won't know where we are"

"They're already there," Hinata explained as he scrambled out from beneath the bridge. "They found food in the dumpster behind that weird fancy place on the-street-that-smells-like-coal, so we have dinner sorted too."

That was also reassuring- their stolen bakery supplies had ran out last night.

Hinata lead them across a busy street, taking a shortcut through two back alleys before turning left into the-street-that-smelled-like-coal. It was a quiet street, no more than an alley with a road and no more than five shops that were still actually still in business, as well as a severely out-of-place semi-nice restaurant.

This road smelled like smoke- not drug-smoke, but thick, black coalfire smoke, hence the name. Tsukishima could even see the chimney which belched that stuff out.

"This is it!" Hinata pointed to an old, faulty garage door in the endless stone wall. The windows were dark and filled with cobwebs, some were even boarded up. Tsukishima raised his eyebrow and looked down at him.

He didn't even need to say anything for Hinata to react. The little tangerine pouted at him. "Better being squatters than spotted."

"That's not what I meant. How did you find this place?"

Hinata's eyes twinkled mischievously but dully, and Tsukishima was suddenly hit with a small wave of nostalgia. Hinata expressed things with his entire body, but perhaps the most emotive of all were his eyes. Those flaming eyes of his, they'd darken when thirsting for a toss and brighten when he'd achieve or see something cool. Those eyes had died in the Institution, and Tsukishima didn't realise how much he missed that familiar wildfire until right this moment.

He missed everything about the ray of sunshine that used to be Karasuno's dangerous number 10.

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve-" Hinata trotted into another small alley, and pointed to a hole in the wall. "- _ And _ I'm dumb enough to use them!"

And with that he clambered into the hole and slithered through it like a serpent. It definitely used to be a vent- that hole, but before Tsukishima could fully process that thought, Yamaguchi climbed after Hinata, scrambling for a moment before quickly slipping through. Tsukishima sighed and followed suit, inhaling sharply when his hips caught against stone edges, before thankfully finding an angle which let him pull himself through.

The boarded up building turned out to be an abandoned arcade; the huge room's walls lined with machines upon game machines, and it even sported a second floor made of cheap metal. Dust was everywhere, and judging by the very-recent footprints on the floor this place hadn't seen visitors in a long, long time.

"There you are!" Yachi ran up to him, the moment he stood up. Her expression was no longer droopy and disoriented- thank god the stupid anaesthesia was gone now. She reached up to frame his jaw with her short cat-like claws, frosty to the touch. "How're you feeling, Tsukishima-kun?"

Still so proper and polite, even in a situation as drastic as this. Yachi was too innocent, too sweet. She didn't deserve these horrible metal arms and those scars on her upper arms where said metal burrowed beneath her skin. She didn't deserve this.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he assured her, reaching up to gently stroke the back of her hand with a fake thumb. There was a small scratching noise when metal rubbed against metal. "Don't stress yourself out about it."

"Fret about Tsukki later," Yamaguchi huffed from the centre of the arcade. "Food's getting cold."

"The food was already cold," Kageyama corrected dully. Hinata had plonked his ass down on his thighs and the setter was caging him with his arms and hiding his face in his messy ginger locks. "It's the best we could find."

Tsukishima wasn't complaining- any food was good food as far as he was concerned. Granted, everything that they managed to drag back looked like it had been dug out of a dirt hole, but Tsukishima could not afford his usual scarceness with food. There was an open can half-filled with some unknown sauce, many small scraps of chicken and a random packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps.

_ Fine dining _ , Tsukishima thought to himself sarcastically. "We could make a fondue," he offered, attempting to be civilised.

"What's a fondue?" Hinata asked, his question punctuated by Kageyama's questioning stare. Their questions didn't annoy him like usual, but instead comforted him further. As he explained, he supposed it was only because further nostalgia. How far gone was he to miss having to put up the duo's stupidity?

This morning's breakdown seemed so far away now.

They spoke as they ate.

"We need to get ourselves together," said Yamaguchi seriously. "The longer we stay here, the harder it'll be to get out."

"Yeah," Tsukishima agreed. "We need to actually find out where we are to do that." He gave Yamaguchi a quiet nod- he'd become so dependable. Maybe, in another life, he'd've become the captain of their volleyball club?

Yachi brightened. "Aren't there stalls in the town square? They should know what's going on. It... it never hurts to ask, does it?"

They were actually thinking now instead of mindlessly wandering like wayward souls. Tsukishima took another happy bite out of the foul-tasting chicken. It might've taken them quite a while, but look at them go now.

"I don't think they'd understand Japanese," Yamaguchi said, and the stitches on his throat pulsed and he winced. 

Without hesitating, Tsukishima took him into his arms. His body, no matter how altered, was perfect for him to wrap himself around. "What about English? Maybe they'll understand that?"

Yamaguchi huffed a breathless laugh, ignoring Tsukishima's glare at his throat. "I suck at English, you know that Tsukki."

Tsukishima looked to Yachi, but she looked just as lost. "The only thing I really remember is how to say my name, and how to ask for someone's phone number," she confessed sheepishly.

Tsukishima gave the idiot duo a glare. "I'm not even going to ask you two."

"Now that's offensive!" Hinata squealed.

"Huh!?" Kageyama barked at the exact same time.

"Stop it you three," Yachi reigned them in. "We have to stay focused."

"Well," Yamaguchi turned to Tsukishima, and affectionately patted his head. "Looks like you're up."

Tsukishima could feel his shoulders sagging. That would be human interaction and he doesn't support it. Not to mention he'd never had a proper English conversation in his life- one that wasn't pre-determined for an exam. He was sure English-speaking people did not speak like what they taught in schools.

He could feel the familiar pinprick of anxiety, but he shook it away. "Fine," he relented. "I'll go."

The arms around his neck caught him a little off guard. "Thank you."

* * *

By now Tsukishima knew his way to the town centre. It was only a fifteen-minute walk, but alone it seemed much longer. This lone-wolf expedition bothered Tsukishima slightly, but he'd insisted to go alone because if Hinata and Yachi could go on dangerous vigilante missions, then so could he. And now he was regretting it. If only Yamaguchi had come with him.

He snuggled further into the stolen jacket, and could only wish none of his... oddities could be seen. The massive scar on his chin couldn't be helped, however. Tsukishima ran his tongue over his metal teeth, before clicking it to himself. Normal teeth didn't taste of anything, and now he had to endure the permanent taste of titanium in his mouth. He was beginning to really hate that taste, too.

It was the only change he really didn't understand; why replace teeth when his old ones did the job just fine? His limbs? Sure, whatever, but _teeth_? Maybe it was to stop carries or some shit. At least Hinata also went through the same change- he didn't have to suffer the insufferable metallic taste alone.

His gut sank a little when his sight settled on a little stall in the distance. The young woman seemed to be selling vegetables, but she had no customers. He sighed. The quicker he sucked it up, the quicker he'd get it over with.

Tsukishima dully approached the stall, and the girl behind the counter glared at him from behind gold-rimmed glasses. Her eyebrows reached her hairline, and she gave him such a confused look which transcended all language. _How are you here?_

Tsukishima glared at her in response, even if to stomp down his rising worry. Her sight made him miss his own glasses too.

"Do you speak Japanese?" he tried first, but the girl just blinked at him. That was a no, then. "Do you speak English?" he tried instead, cringing just a little at his probably less than stellar pronunciation.

The girl, however, perked up at those words. "A bit," she told him, in an equally difficult accent.

Tsukishima sighed in relief, and cut straight to the important question. "Where am I?"

The girl behind the counter twisted her face in confusion, but she masked it with a customer-service-like smile. "You are in Norilsk."

Tsukishima furrowed his brow. That wasn't a country... was it?

"Russia," the girl elaborated when she saw his own look of utter confusion. "Norilsk is city, Russia is country."

"Ah," Tsukishima nodded, though internally he was screaming.  _ How in the actual hell _ did they end up in Russia? Probably via human trafficking- okay nevermind, scratch that thought. Forgive him, he wasn't exactly an expert on Russian geography- if they were in Japan he'd've had them home in the blink of an eye. And also forgive him, but he was convinced that asking where exactly 'Norilsk' was on the massive fucking mainland wasn't going to help him if he knew nothing about said massive fucking mainland.

"Where is Internet cafe?" he asked instead, but had to repeat himself slower for the girl to get what he was saying. When she understood, she smiled at him and leaned out to point down the street.

"Go down there, then left, and it's the big blue," she told him, before sitting back and swirling the tip of her pen in her coffee. "Best of luck."

"To you too." And with that Tsukishima slunk off down the street to follow those directions.

True to the girl's words, the cafe was big and blue, marked with not only cyrillic but fancy english lettering too. He stepped up to it quickly, and rushed inside when he noticed one of the public computers was vacant.

He'd never used an Internet cafe before, wasn't even sure if there was one in that little town they all used to call home. There were couple of electronics stores, but that was about it- they weren't fancy enough for all that jazz. He also hoped that money wouldn't be an issue- he'd taken some loose coins from one of the arcade machines but that was about it.

One look at the date on the computer had him frozen for a moment. 19-11-13... Nineteenth of November, 2013... almost a year after they had been taken. They were all, asides from Kageyama, seventeen years old. It set a nasty chill down Tsukishima's spine. Eleven months was quite a long time to be missing- would there still be search parties looking for them?

Tsukishima's fingers were on the keys before he could stop himself. The computer was in another language, but at least Google recognised the romanji in the search bar.

He'd typed in all their names, and he wasn't exactly sure how to react to the results that popped up.

It was a little like looking at your own grave. The first website he'd clicked on flashed up five student ID photos of a happier, simpler time. And yet, underneath each, there was labelled the word 'missing', in big bold characters, and underneath that were their full names, written descriptions, date and place last seen, everything.

Tsukishima had seen missing posters before; but he'd never thought he'd see his own face plastered across one. Especially when that face looked so much different than his own- scarless, short-haired and with rectangular glasses perched smartly upon his nose.

Further scrolling had his stomach drop even further.

Their disappearance was pronounced a cold case just last month. The police had given up on them, everyone had given up on them. Had their families given up on them? Had mum and Atikeru given up on him?

Tsukishima knew he'd gone too far when he scrolled down into the comments section of the article, and one particular comment had stuck.

_I'm putting my money on human trafficking. If they're not slaves or chained to a brothel in a foreign country, they're most likely already dead._  


Tsukishima felt dead.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and opened a new tab and terminating the first. He was here for a job, goddammit, not to get upset over... over...

He grit his teeth. Shit, he wasn't going to cry again.

He noticed a prim and proper gentleman staring at him from across the cafe, so he wiped his eyes against a sleeve and got his head further down.

He managed to find out where Norilsk was, and to his dismay it wasn't exactly next-door to Japan. Japan was tiny compared to Russia- and he'd thought the road from Miyagi to Tokyo was long. Maybe they should get a plane?

Yep, Norilsk did have an airport, but would it be useful? Neither of them had passports or IDs or... anything really. And, as Kageyama had put it; 'while they looked like this'?

There had been stories of people hiding in the wheels of planes, but sure as hell Tsukishima wasn't about to let any of them be endangered by hypothermia again; Hinata and Yachi nearly died for fuck's sake-

The brief moment of terror shattered his concentration for a second time, but he managed to pull himself together without spiraling.

_ Don't think about that. Focus on the task at hand . _

What then? Either they were going to have to take the very risky chance with a plane, where not only they would very well freeze to death (it was cold enough on land, thank you very much), but also be caught and/or shot; or make the long, risky journey to the eastern coast, where a whole other slew of things could go wrong.

Well at the very least they know where they are, that had to be a good place to start.

Tsukishima sighed deeply, and closed the browser.

* * *

When Tsukishima returned, however, he found the arcade incredibly silent. A feeling of dread gripped his lungs, and as he pulled himself through the hole he called out the names of his friends into the quiet abandoned backrooms.

Nothing.

And then-

"Tsukki!"

A quiet whisper. Yamaguchi's whisper.

His olive-brown head poked out like a mushroom from behind a multiplayer first-person shooter game. The light cast by his cyan eye bounced off the plastic casing of the machines; like frost-fire. That glow-in-the-dark eye never blinked, and only closed when Yamaguchi fell asleep.

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi huffed out again, and all but ran to him. "You're back. You're back."

He was trembling. Tsukishima could feel the tremors as Yamaguchi curled into his chest.

"Yamaguchi." He rubbed at his metal biceps. "Breathe, calm down. What's wrong?"

"Kageyama had an attack," was all that Yamaguchi whispered.

Horror gripped Tsukishima, and suddenly all the cold of this isolated snowy pole was nothing compared to the chill he felt in that moment. He rushed past Yamaguchi and past the first-person shooter. It was then that the smell of blood made itself apparent to him, and Tsukishima halted in his tracks.

There was blood all over the floor, dark and thick, and Kageyama was lying in the centre of it, with Yachi and Hinata holding onto him desperately. Both were awake, yet neither even lifted their heads to react; they both looked dead behind the eyes.

They dubbed them 'attacks'; because what else were they? Their bodies tried to violently reject the foreign enhancements every once in a while, but every time they happened they had the Institution staff help them keep them to life. But now they were on their own, with nothing.

He then noticed Kageyama's chest still moving, and Tsukishima gasped out the breath he wasn't even aware of holding. He sat down behind Hinata and pulled Kageyama's black bangs out of his eyes.

Kageyama bore intense facial scarring, and while it was shocking and borderline disturbing to look at, at first, by now Tsukishima was used to it. But just because he was used to it it didn't mean he didn't feel that less-than-tiny pinprick of rage every time he saw those scars.

"-shima?"

Tsukishima snapped his attention to Kageyama, who cracked his eyes into tiny openings. They were glazed over and unfocused, but still stubbornly open.

"You're back." A little line of blood dribbled out the corner of his mouth.

Tsukishima wiped it away. "I'm here, I'm here," he assured him, and fit his cheek into his palm. "Hang in there, will you, King?"

His reply was only a slight glint in Kageyama's pretty belladonna eyes.

When Tsukishima laid down, he made sure to nudge his nose against Kageyama's over Hinata's head- to check on his breathing, of course...

Tsukishima wasn't sure how he grew to care about Kageyama so deeply. Was it shared trauma? He didn't care for the reason; he more so wasn't sure how he could've truly hated this boy in the first place.

There was shuffling, and Yamaguchi rejoined his place behind Yachi, who made a quiet non-committal noise as he settled down. Tsukishima met his gaze, and he realised that his best friend looked just as dead as he did inside the walls of the Institution.

He’d tell Yamaguchi all about Norilsk later, but for now he reached out and found his hand, and gave it a tight squeeze.


	3. KAGEYAMA - ANY PORT IN A STORM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you’re reading this, thank you, because you’ve made it this far. It’s nice to see you here, I hope you had a good day.

You don't know how good you've had it until you've lost it. That went for a lot of things. It coincidentally went for everything Kageyama thought he knew.

He missed not being chilled nearly to death, he missed waking up in a bed in the safety of his own home. There were so many things he took for granted- volleyball, his morning runs, his house, his family, his face.

But probably the thing he missed most of all was being painless. He hadn't yet gotten used to the inner workings of new organs, and Kageyama's deep subconscious always reminded him that this wasn't right, this was wrong, it didn't like this, this isn't how his body was supposed to function.

Kageyama swore he could hear his insides screaming.

And sometimes, his body had enough. It wanted the intrusive fakes gone, and what resulted was the greatest physical pain Kageyama had ever known. He wasn't exactly an expert on the whole 'pain' department, but he was certain that not a lot of things could rival the feeling of his body trying to rip itself apart- and nearly succeeding.

So when it happened at that arcade, just moments after Tsukishima left to investigate, he wanted to end his life then and there. Death, he knew, would stop everything. It would take away the pain and the cold, and he'd face whatever came afterwards with his head held high.

But he didn't. If he did end it all, he'd hurt the others. They'd come so far to pull themselves out of the hellpit they had all been dragged into, and Kageyama would never jeopardise that.

So he clung to life as tightly as he could. And when everything stopped, he rest his tired head and slept so, so deeply.

Time passed in a blur- but that was something Kageyama was used to now. And as the hours drew by, his mind cleared, bit by bit, and he regained strength.

Hinata was the one to stay with him most of the time, offering himself up to be Kageyama's personal radiator and guard, shall anything go wrong, while Tsukishima, Yamaguchi and Yachi journeyed outside, to find money and food and maybe some way to get home.

From what Kageyama had understood, there was an airport here, a potential way home, except that they couldn't really use it. Unless they managed to find a place which could sell them fake passports, and they could somehow make themselves look like fake tourists, this way out wouldn't do them any good. Not to mention security, which was a guaranteed fail because at least half of them was now metal, and the cameras; they weren't certain but there was a possibility that the Institution was hooked up to those cameras. At least that's all what Tsukishima had said.

Yamaguchi had made the decision to stay here for the time being until they had a solid way out. No more calling the shots on a whim; even if blind luck had gotten them this far there was a limit to the distance it could carry them. They'd scraped all the money they could from the arcade machines, just incase, but still visited the dumpster behind the restaurant across the street-that-smelled-like-coal; because you wouldn't  _believe_ how much food they threw away each day.

Granted it wasn't the best-tasting after it was cold and dirty, but they had no right to complain.

He lay with Hinata that afternoon, on that cold, dusty floor. Despite everything, their size difference was the same, and now, as he held him in his arms, he realised that he was literally the perfect size for him to hold. Why hadn't he done this before?

Hinata was laying on his chest, and even though his protruding ribcage bothered Kageyama a little, he kept his tongue behind his teeth. He was incredibly heavy, but Hinata's weight was comfortable, and Kageyama ran his hand up and down his ridged spine.

_He's a bit like a dragon_ , he dully thought.

"Ne, Kageyama," Hinata suddenly said, and Kageyama grunted to let him know he was listening.

"When we get back, do you think we'll still be able to stand upon the world stage?"

The world stopped. Kageyama stopped.

Would it still be possible? His dream? The world stage? Would it be possible?

Kageyama hadn't even held a volleyball in months.

He held up an arm to the dim light of day. The glistening wires cutting through his skin sneered back at him, as did the implanted metal plates. He traced his fingers against the biggest wire, snaking up his arm like a vein, and burrowing into the space between his middle and ring finger.

It was actually disgusting, the way those wires swam about his body like dolphins in water, but he'd already learned his lesson in picking at them; they were like permanent cysts, in a certain sense.

What would receiving be like with wired arms? Would the ball be able to go the correct way if it no longer had a smooth surface to bounce off of? Could spiking with an arm criss-crossed with filaments even be effective? Would his tattered fingertips still have the same precision as they once did? 

And even so, would he be able to hold out on a court? When an attack would inevitably claim him in the middle of a play, what would happen then? How much would it hurt when his body ripped itself apart on a court? Would it hurt when he hit a ball to serve?

Would anyone even take him as a setter? Would he even stand to show his horrifying, scarred face on a stage where everyone was looking at him?

Kageyama grimaced and returned his hand to rubbing at Hinata's crocodile-spine. His fingerprints had been rubbed off, and now his sense of touch was coarse and not as defined as he was used to it being.

"I think we will," Hinata stubbornly objected, as if hearing Kageyama's thoughts.

_We're not the first athletes to get injured_ , he wanted to reply, but his stiff lips would not form those words, so he instead coughed and said; "You are  _far_ too optimistic."

He didn't want to even entertain that thought.

Sharp metal talons framed his face, and Kageyama flinched and shied away.  _No, don't look at me._

"Hey," Hinata whispered at him. "As long as I get to play volleyball with you, I'll be satisfied."

The giddiness that suddenly filled him was such a foreign feeling, filling him with such a foreign warmth and he was sure Hinata could feel his heart hammering. He tried to grimace, though knew he wasn't doing a very good job at it, so instead he turned his head away in a pout. Stupid, stupid Hinata.

"Liar."

"I'm not!"

"You will never be satisfied," Kageyama barked at him with no real effort.

Hinata faltered a little, and lay his head down in defeat. "I know," he admitted noncommittally and quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Dumbass." Kageyama apologetically murmured. “I bet you that if this had never happened, we would've stood upon the world stage together."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

Hinata gave a quiet laugh. "I think that's the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me." That quiet laugh sounded suspiciously like a sob. "I wasn't lying completely. Playing volleyball with you does make me happy."

And there his heart goes, hammering again.

"It won't hurt to try," Hinata stubbornly announced, ferocity back in his voice. His hands fisted tightly into the stolen, oversized jacket. "There's still a chance we'll get to play, even if we look like this. We'll never know unless we try."

Hinata did have a point. Maybe he _was_ too hopeful, but maybe Kageyama should take a page out of his book and hold onto that hope too.

Yeah.

He would play volleyball again, and as a great setter too. No stupid cables were going to stop him.

His heart suddenly stung.

"We missed the Nationals."

There was a quiet whimper in reply, and Kageyama couldn't've agreed more. They had a chance to stand on the highest stage that someone their age could achieve, no, not a chance- a guaranteed place hard won.

And that opportunity was torn to shreds right before his very eyes.

How did their senpais get on without them? There weren't many players on the Karasuno team to begin with, and with three of their regulars gone they had to fill in that hole. Sugawara-san of course would've played setter, that was obvious... Ennoshita-san and Narita-san would've filled in for Tsukishima and Hinata, Kinnoshita-san would've had to shoulder the pinches all by himself without Yamaguchi around, and dear Shimizu-senpai would've had to rush to find a new manager with Yachi gone.

How did they do? Kageyama hoped they did well; no doubt everyone would've given it their all. He only wished to be a part of their victories, to play with them for just a little longer, at least.

Miwa had once jabbed at him; "you're going to get adopted by your senpais at that club, just you watch!"

Kageyama missed Miwa's jabs at him. Kageyama missed Miwa. If only he'd bothered to learn phone numbers off by heart like she used to.

_God fucking dammit._

He could feel Hinata's tears beginning to soak his shirt. His own tears had started flowing down his cheeks and catching on his earlobes.

They had cried to each other far too many times, so much so that the utter despair that weighed on them had become completely normal. He used to scarcely cry, only after a lost game or at his grandfather's funeral. He didn't even wail all that much as a toddler. Now he cried nearly every day.

He hated this.

Kageyama didn't know how long they wept that afternoon, but neither moved when they both ran out of tears to cry. They lay there, perhaps for hours, in total silence afterwards.

* * *

He must've fallen asleep at some point, because as he pulled apart his sticky eyelids, what he registered was Tsukishima's face looking down at him. When did he come back? The blond perked up when he noticed Kageyama was awake, and he cocked his head.

"Are you finally going to be joining us, your highness?"

Ah.

Kageyama had started to miss that nickname, and hearing it was odd music to his ears. Tsukishima hadn't called him that in a long, long time.

He reached up a hand towards him, and let their fingers intertwine. "Yeah."

"We found a whole pizza!" Yachi-san called from the entrance. "You really don't believe what they just throw away!"

"Hmm?" Hinata mumbled, and Kageyama tapped at his shoulder.

"Get off, there's food."

"Really?" Hinata bounced up, and got off immediately, turning over to see Yachi waltz in trying to hold a whole pizza without the box. He couldn't see her head over it, even when Kageyama's perspective changed as he sat up.

"I'm glad you two didn't change all that much," Tsukishima snorted and sat behind him, shuffling close and wrapping his arms around his torso. He sighed in contentment as he rested his chin on his shoulder. "I'm stealing your warmth. Don't complain."

"Fuck you. You're cold."

There were steps coming, and when Yamaguchi stepped into their little 'camp', Kageyama had to blink properly to make sure he was really seeing what he was seeing. A part of him still didn't believe that the person standing between two empty claw machines was really Yamaguchi Tadashi. It just... didn't feel right.

Yamaguchi shouldn't be built like a bulldozer, with a creepy eye that never blinked and the eyesore and throatsore that were the stitches which reached from the underside of his chin, over his Adam's apple and ended between his collarbones. Yamaguchi didn't have bags under his eyes, or grime in his teeth.

And yet here he was.

They were all like that. They were all wrong.

Their eyes met, and as Kageyama quickly looked down so his bangs would shield his face, and Yamaguchi immediately understood what had transpired. "Again?" Tsukishima stiffened, before nuzzling into his neck.

"Yeah," Hinata sighed out, but helped Yachi with the pizza anyways.

"We're better now," Kageyama lied, and gestured with his hand, requesting Yamaguchi come join. "You're shaking. Come sit."

Yamaguchi quickly obliged, and snuggled upon his lap, claiming his other shoulder for himself.

"There's a van parked down the street, been there for the past couple of days," he mentioned, his voice much quieter now, and he allowed himself longer, more coherent sentences. "It kinda looks like a gecko."

"A gecko?" Hinata echoed hollowly. "Like, an alligator?"

"Those are two completely different animals," sighed Tsukishima.

"That van has a really strange-looking face," Yamaguchi continued unperturbed. "Its lights look like eyes."

"Maybe it's been abandoned," Yachi-san offered, and smacked down the pizza on the floor. Hinata opened his arms for her, and she did not hesitate to lean into him.

How could a van look like a gecko? Kageyama had a dull memory of little geckoes scurrying about a little glass cage in the zoo, he couldn't really visualise them having four wheels.

That sounded like a really weird fucking van.

The pizza's taste made Kageyama nearly gag, and he put his hand up to his mouth. Now he understood why that restaurant threw out the entire thing. He swallowed the mouthful with great difficulty, but forced himself to take another. It's like the saying goes; beggars can't be choosers... was that a saying? Miwa went through a phase repeating that constantly at one point some years ago and-

"Gosh, this pizza is disgusting," Hinata complained, vocalising Kageyama's thoughts. "I think we're gonna get food poisoning from this one."

"We don't exactly have any other options, do we?" Yamaguchi huffed, though his grimace revealed that he was in agreement with the little spiker.

"Maybe we can buy ourselves something decent for once?" Yachi proposed, and shook her coat. A few small coins rattled onto the floor. "It's not much, but we've also got the money we took from the arcades. It should be enough to buy at least a couple of sandwiches."

"To be fair I'd rather we save up for a taxi fare or a train ticket," Tsukishima admitted. "The sooner we get out of here the sooner we can get a decent meal. And maybe a place to shower."

Yachi frowned back at him. "It's not going to do us any good if we all get food poisoning, too."

"It'd be good thing to actually eat edible food again," Kageyama backed Yachi up. She gave him a thankful little smile, and his fingers felt warm. Hinata gave a grumble of agreement, his face was full of blonde hair.

"As much as I agree with you," said Yamaguchi. "We've got food right here, for free. Norilsk is over four-thousand and fifty kilometres away from home, and who knows what we're going to need for that journey."

"That can't be that long," Kageyama grimaced down at him. "Four-thousand and fifty kilometres isn't that large of a distance."

He could feel Tsukishima sigh into his neck. "Four-thousand and fifty kilometres is roughly the length of the entire US. For comparison, the distance from our little country town to Tokyo is roughly three- _hundred_ and fifty kilometres, and you thought that was a long way away. Even someone as maths-illiterate as you should tell that three-fifty doesn't even hold a candle to forty-fifty."

Kageyama's jaw dropped. How exactly far away was Russia? Jesus Christ, what the fucking fuck was this!? How were they supposed to get home now? Surely they couldn't trek that far? At least not without freezing to death, even though Yachi and Hinata had somehow survived that once (not that Kageyama was complaining, but seriously, how was that even possible? He was sure once you freeze over to the point ice starts growing on your very skin you're pretty much done for- and while he was on this topic how the hell were any of them even alive? Shouldn't all of them have frozen to death at this point?)

A sharp tapping at the side of his skull scattered his thoughts.

"Stop that, leave the intelligent thinking to us, King." Tsukishima smiled up at him, and Kageyama narrowed his eyes at him, trying to figure out why his annoying face was so hard to get annoyed at nowadays. He instead pulled Yamaguchi closer to him and pouted into his hair. 

"How are we going to get home then?" he asked. Maybe they did have some sort of plan to cross that great of a distance.

"There  _are_ flights from here to Tokyo," Yachi-san put in, apparently forgetting her earlier quest to get proper food. "But I don't think we'll ever manage to raise that amount of money, besides, we look like stray dogs." She shook her head wearily. "We aren't even supposed to be here. Norilsk is closed to foreigners because of their nickel mines; us even being here is illegal."

Oh.

Oh no.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck?

"I'm actually surprised we haven't been picked up by the cops yet," Tsukishima elaborated. "It's best we stay out of sight from now."

"Can you all stop being negative!?" Hinata suddenly snapped, and didn't even flinch when all eyes turned on him. "We're either getting out of here or waiting for hell itself to swallow us whole. If we can't get on the plane, we have to look at another solution. We're wasting time just hanging about. We need to act now."

Yachi hugged him affectionately, sensing that the redhead was getting upset again. Her voice was soft and even, though it was painstakingly obvious she was just as distressed as Hinata seemed to be. "You're right, it's just that we have to take our time. Most likely we only have one shot at this, so we can't mess it up."

_Just like a volleyball tournament_ , Kageyama thought.  _You lose once, it's over. But you can also try next year. We don't have a 'next year'_.

...This was his fault, wasn't it? If he didn't have that stupid attack, they'd be long gone by now. He contributed nothing, and he was just holding them back. What could he possibly offer? He was dumb as a pile of rocks, and now he wasn't even skilled or strong anymore, not in any way that mattered.

Utterly, utterly useless. They should just discard him.

Shit he was going to cry again.

His bloodstream still hurt.

The conversation died then. None of them really knew what to say afterwards, or what to really suggest.

Life really did seem simpler back home.

The evening went a little better than the other one. Hinata had discovered that the building still somehow had power, and that one of the arcade games still worked. A racing game, one which you had a false wheel and a false chair and everything. He, Tsukishima and Yachi took turns, since it was a two-player game.

It wasn't much, but as Kageyama lay there with his throbbing head he couldn't help but think that it was the happiest he'd heard them all in a long, long time.

He adjusted himself against Yamaguchi, and dully hoped that things weren't really as hopeless as they seemed right now.

Yamaguchi, bless his soul, seemed to notice his own growing worry, and gathered him into his strong arms. Yamaguchi was much bigger than him now, and he was only a few centimetres shorter than Tsukishima- something Kageyama definitely wasn't used to.

"You okay?" he asked gently. The eyelashes around his fake eye were growing back, Kageyama noted.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't want to talk about it."

There was a shout from behind the corner, one which let him know Hinata was currently losing.

"The most important thing is that you're alright," Yamaguchi told him. His fingers were cold yet gentle against his cheeks. "Are you...?"

"It's doesn't hurt all that much now," he admitted, though Yamaguchi's stare made him shy away again. "I should be back up on my feet soon."

Yamaguchi's body was so warm, and Kageyama curled himself against it. He couldn't really describe it, but somehow, being in Yamaguchi's arms made him feel safe. He was comfortable here, incredibly so, and he murmured his contentment because that always got Yamaguchi to take him closer.

"I'm glad you're alright," he whispered again, his words earnest. "I don't know what we'd do if we lost you."

Kageyama hugged him tighter, not wanting to think about that either.

He focused on the steady sound of Yamaguchi’s breathing until finally, he fell asleep.


	4. HINATA - MOON RISING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m so tired.

The restaurant across the street-that-smelled-like-coal must've had a huge reservation, because the chatter of voices was all that Hinata could hear that late night. It was so loud he could even hear it when he pressed his head under Kageyama's armpit.

So instead he tried to decipher what the people outside were talking about. Russian sounded so different than Japanese, but he could still tell their mood by their tone. Whoever was having a gathering right outside an old arcade on a filthy street, they seemed incredibly happy.

He disentangled himself from the tangle of limbs and metal and stood to his feet. Whatever was left of his legs used to light themselves on fire every time he stood upon them, his thighs especially, since that was where his new metal legs burrowed themselves under his flesh. It still stung, a little like the aftermath of a tiring workout he was not prepared for, but at least that was bearable, even if it was nowhere near as pleasant as the alternative he equated it to.

Hinata hated how his body felt now. His lungs were wrong, his limbs were wrong, his heartbeat was incredibly wrong. Even his own blood, it flowed through his veins differently. Hinata hated how he could even tell that his blood flowed differently; he used to be so blissfuly ignorant of his own circulatory system.

His body was crying out for help and there was nothing Hinata could do to save it.

He had this awful feeling that his body was trying to warn him about something, and the thought settled on the back of his mind like a large spider. There was something else horribly wrong, and yet he couldn't place his finger on what it was.

He was kidding himself if he thought the people outside were the reason he couldn't sleep. His brain was begging him to do something before it was too late, but Hinata didn't know what was wrong or how to fix it. If he could fix it at all.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He looked back to his friends, and a weird feeling stirred alongside the anxiety. They all slept in a cuddle-pile now, and he was sure this night was the calmest they'd ever been. Usually someone would've woken up screaming by now. It was annoying that Hinata couldn't fall asleep in the first place, when was the last time he had a good night's rest?

He sighed into his palms before looking up at the metal floor of the second level. It was like a little veranda, with what looked like the ruins of a bumper-car arena. And there was a trapdoor up on the ceiling there, and it caught Hinata's attention again.

There.

Hinata climbed up onto that veranda without much hesitation, and scrambled up onto the ticket booth to reach up and push the trapdoor open. It was unlocked, and Hinata slithered up into it effortlessly.

Beyond the trapdoor, there was a ladder in a claustrophobic vertical vent, almost too small for Hinata to fit through. That vent stank of rust and coal, and Hinata coughed out before pulling himself up and towards the second hatch up above.

This second hatch was heavier, and Hinata actually had to heave to get it open. But once he did and he pulled himself through, he was met with an incredible chill.

The outside was always freezing, and this rooftop especially. It was usually very windy up here, but tonight, the air was still.

Hinata settled himself between two exits of ventilation shafts, overlooking the skyline of the city. The black buildings were illuminated by countless of bright little yellow windows, and the cars rushed around their roads, white and red lights following them wherever they drove. There were thin, tall chimneys in the distance, still belching that thick black smoke into the air. Ah, those must be from those nickel-mines Yachi was talking about.

The cold helped a little to calm him down, it was like an old acquaintance at this point. He lifted his head to inhale the chalky air, letting the chill nip at his lungs before he breathed out, the white water vapour catching the yellow light of the streetlamps below.

He'd gotten used to the cold by now, even though he didn't like it much. Like everything else, it was unsettling.

The cold was like death, and Hinata could still remember the pain of it stabbing him repeatedly when he tried to drag himself and Yachi-san out from its clutches. It should've killed the both of them, even when the other three pulled them back inside. It just didn't seem possible, not without the involvement of a hospital.

Hinata knew so because a kid, a friend of one of his volleyball kohai from back in Junior High, had gotten hypothermia and had to be warmed up in the hospital; poor boy almost didn't make it.

So why were he and Yachi, who were frozen solid, still alive? Not that he was complaining, but it seemed... wrong.

Everything was wrong.

"Hinata."

He jumped slightly when his name was called, and when he looked up he was met with Yachi-san's equally as startled face.

"S-Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!"

"It's okay, Yachi-san," he assured her, and cocked his head to the side. "What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same question." When she huffed a gentle laugh a puff of dragon's breath escaped from her mouth. It honestly looked pretty cool. "Can I sit?"

"Yeah sure."

He could hear Yachi cringe in pain as she sat down beside him, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her sharp hand. Her face, thankfully, remained untouched by the Institution, and she was just as cute as the day he first saw her.

The same couldn't really be said for the rest of them- especially Kageyama, who's face was so scarred he barely looked like himself anymore.

"What's wrong, Hinata?" she asked.

Hinata lay his chin on his metal knees, and hugged them. "I'm sorry," he confessed. "For dragging you out."

Yachi's eyebrows furrowed. Don't tell him she'd forgotten that too-

"Do you mean to steal from the clothes line?" She elaborated, and Hinata gave a dip of the head. She waved her hand before pulling her hair out of her eyes. "You don't need to apologise for that. Nothing that drastic happened; we're both still alive."

Hinata's mouth flinched. Yachi-san and the others seemed so hellbent on focusing on getting home, and that was a good thing, Hinata knew he should be doing the same; but he couldn't shake the feeling that they were ignoring something crucial.

"Hey." A cold metal hand smoothed his clothed shoulder, and Hinata looked up. Yachi's face was soft, and open, and Hinata had a momentary deja vu. He'd had a crush on Yachi since that photoshoot she did for the donation flyers. She looked just as beautiful then as she did now. "I'm not angry. We did good, we got ourselves clothes. If we didn't, we'd still be running about in nothing but hospital robes. And- and that would've... that would've been really bad."

Hinata frowned at her, however. "It's not just that," he said and hugged his knees tighter. "I have a bad feeling."

"A bad feeling?" Yachi echoed, eyes wide. "What do you mean?"

Hinata stopped and thought, before lifting his hands to try gesture what he meant. "I... I don't know," he admitted. "I just... I just have a feeling that something bad is going to happen. I don't know; like, something is creeping up on us right under our noses and we won't even notice until it's too late." He let out a pained 'geh' when he failed to articulate his point. "Something's very wrong Yachi-san, I can feel it."

The girl blinked back at him. "Like, something is wrong with our chances of getting home?"

"No. Like something's wrong with us, or at least with me."

Yachi rested her hand on his shoulder again. "Hinata, there's something wrong with all of us. I... It's better if we just get used to it."

She didn't understand. Hinata knew they were messed up- how could he not!? Even Natsu could tare herself away from drawing for a few moments and point out every single thing that was wrong with him; she could do that even before the Institution ripped him apart!

...Natsu...

Hinata digressed. He'll come back her soon, and he'd apologise for everything. His point was- he already knew they were messed up. But what he was meaning was that there was something else! Something he couldn't quite place, but he knew it was dangerous and breeding under a rock like woodlice, waiting to strike.

"Breathe, calm down." Hinata realised he had just spat out all of that when her hands found his cheeks. Hinata leaned right into them. "You don't have to do that, you're only going to work yourself up again."

"But I-"

"Hinata, just breathe. You're out of the Institution, you're not there anymore. We are going home and we are safe and they are not going to hurt you ever again."

She kept at those words until Hinata calmed down, only then did she take him into her arms, and Hinata buried his flat face as far into her chest as it could go. Yachi-san was good to hug, she had such a soft upper body.

"If your gut-feeling is correct-" her hands started to comb through his hair. "-if there really is something else wrong with you; when it comes we'll deal with it together. All of us. You won't be alone."

Hinata could feel his eyes leaking. "Y-Yeah."

"I mean it." He could feel her fingers scratching him behind the ear like a cat, and Hinata decided that he liked it.

The silence was broken by the sudden wailing of a car alarm, and when it subsided Hinata realised that he couldn't hear the happy Russians anymore. Lev would understand them, he'd shown off his Russian-speaking skills back at the summer training camp. He was half-Russian, wasn't he?

"Do you know what my favourite part of Norilsk is?" Yachi suddenly asked, and Hinata turned to look at the skyline once more, and Yachi's heart kept beating against his ear.

"The chimneys? We don't get this much pollution in the countryside."

Yachi giggled, and Hinata could feel his own heart start to speed up. Her laugh was so cute...

"Norilsk is a closed city." She rest her cheek on Hinata's head to look into the distance with him. "Foreigners aren't allowed here. It means that we're some of the only Japanese people to see this view with our very own eyes."

Hinata squinted at one particular faraway chimney. "I guess that's one way to look at it." He knew Yachi-san was trying to cheer him up, but he couldn't even force himself to be happy. He hadn't been happy in a long time now.

Hinata had almost forgotten what it was like.

ARGH.

He buried his face back into Yachi's chest and screamed. He could only weep as she held him.

He wept like that for a few long moments before he managed to calm down.  _Breathe deeply, just like Yachi said to._  


"Do... do you feel better?"

"I think so."

Yachi continued to rub circles into his back long after he'd stopped sobbing, and he settled against her comfortably. The coal-ish smell was really the only thing keeping him grounded, otherwise he'd think he was back in the Institution, with the bars of their doorway casting long shadows over them all as they waited for footsteps to start echoing down the hallway again.

There really were footsteps coming towards them, and Yachi's head shot up. Her breath hitched and Hinata shrunk back.

And Yamaguchi's head poked out from behind the little nubs of the ventilation exists. "What're y'doing?"

Yachi breathed out a massive breath. "Oh my gods, Yamaguchi, you scared us!"

A small smile spread across Yamaguchi's face, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry," he apologised. "Was wondering where yous went." He leaned over the metal box to glare at both of them playfully. "You two 'ave a record of finding trouble when you go off together."

Hinata smiled sheepishly at him, and Yachi could only chuckle nervously. Yamaguchi met his eyes, and offered him a heartwarming, understanding smile. "Room for one more?"

He was an angel, Hinata was sure of it. He shuffled around so Yamaguchi could cling to him more comfortably. His cheek rubbed at his, and Yamaguchi's eyelashes brushed his cheekbone.

"How're y'feeling?"

"I'm getting by," Hinata assured him. The pinch server smiled at him and rested his chin on his ginger hair, while Yachi flipped the tables and pressed her own face to his chest. They sat there staring at the dark skyline, and Yamaguchi sometimes rubbed his cheek against his head reassuringly, and squeezed his hand.

"Is there room for two more?"

That's how the cuddle pile moved up onto the rooftop. It was more comfortable up here somehow, despite the cold, and they had a... view.

And despite his insides still foreboding certain doom, Hinata found it a little easier to breathe.

It was like that night when the entire team stood silently staring at a massive, full moon. Except the team was so far away, and there was no moon. Only big black chimneys and a sky of light-polluted smoke.

Is this what living in a city would be like?

A helicopter flew across the sky, its white light severely out of place as it carried on its merry way. A mock shooting star, almost.

"Hey, what do you all think we'll get to do when we get back?" Yachi broke their silence after the helicopter disappeared off into the clouds.

"Don't you think it's a little early to be thinking about that?" Tsukishima murmured behind her. Hinata narrowed his eyes at him. Yachi-san had been carrying the positivity of the team on her shoulders ever since they'd escaped, and was trying her best, and she didn't have to do that. It was supposed to be Hinata's job to keep up team morale, not poor, anxiety-ridden Yachi-san.

... _It was supposed to be his job and he was failing it splendidly_ .

"It doesn't hurt to look forward to things." He defended her, growling at Tsukishima before a smack on his arm reminded him to not start fights. "I'm going to get into one of the first-league volleyball teams."

"World Stage," Kageyama hummed longingly. "That's where the highest level players play."

Hinata pretended not to feel the rising ache in his stomach. "Yeah. That's the dream."

"I don't know if I could ever play on the world stage." Yamaguchi's laugh shook Hinata just a little. "But, I admit it would be nice to be good enough to play on a stage like that." Kageyama pressed himself closer to Yamaguchi's back.

"I'd love to play on the World Stage with all of you," said Hinata. "That'd be something."

Tsukishima sighed an exaggerated sigh. "Of course volleyball is the first thing you two come up with. Though I..." he coughed into his fist. "I wouldn't be opposed to that idea entirely," he added quietly.

Hinata knew it! If only he could see Tsukishima as elated about volleyball as he was during the Miyagi finals again. He didn't get to see Tsukishima happy often, and now he probably never will.

"I'd really want to try my hand at animating when I get back," Yachi-san confided and reached out her hand to look at her claw-tipped fingers. "I wonder if I can still hold a pencil."

"I'm sure you can!" Hinata assured her. "Your drawings are amazing!"

"Eeeh!?"

"Yeah! They are!"

Yachi could only hide her face in her talons and squeal, and Hinata couldn't help but snuggle up to her. "I'll get you a whole new sketchbook when we get back," he promised her.

"Well, what do you want to do, besides volleyball?"

Oh that was easy! "I want to go to Brazil!" he answered without any hesitation. "I've always wanted to go to Brazil- I saw a documentary on it once... and they have good beach volleyball there."

"Everything circles back to volleyball with you, doesn't it?" Yamaguchi sighed, but Hinata noticed there was no weariness in his tired eyes anymore, only fondness.

"Yeah."

"I'd've really liked to work in a museum at one point," Tsukishima added when Hinata didn't elaborate. "They do some pretty cool stuff."

"Like... Indiana Jones?" Kageyama asked with wide eyes.

Tsukishima glared at him, then shook his head. "I'd rather eat that gnarly trash-bin-pizza again than go through half of the shit that man did. What I mean is like...  more civilised."

How can Indiana Jones be more civilised? He went to crazy-cool temples all over the world, how could that be civilised? If Tsukishima really wanted to be like that wouldn't he have to have a whip too?

"So touring and stuff, that's kinda boring though," Kageyama furrowed his eyebrows at him, and Tsukishima scowled.

"What besides volleyball do you want to do then, o'person-who-only-thinks-volleyball-is-interesting?"

To everyone's surprise Kageyama already had an answer. "I really want to try one of those fancy drinks, like those with the little paper umbrellas."

"Like those ones with alcohol!?" Yachi gasped.

"Yeah," Kageyama nodded. "But not like beer, that stuff's too bitter; I mean those pretty colourful fruity ones."

"Like a  _Mojito_ , or  _Sex On The Beach_ ," Tsukishima echoed, almost in agreement.

Hinata did a double-take. " _Sex On The Beach_ !?"

And Tsukishima smirked at him. "Yeah, it's an aphrodisiac; something that makes you  _incredibly_ horny."

_That kind of stuff exists!?_  


"He's yanking your chain, Hinata," Yamaguchi shook his head. " _Sex On The Beach_ is just fruit juice and vodka."

"Way to ruin my fun, Yamaguchi."

"Oh, sorry Tsukki."

"Well Yamaguchi? You mind telling us about  your impossible endeavours?"

Yamaguchi tapped a finger against his bottom lip for a moment. "I... I don't actually know. I'd wanted to be a doctor for a while, but I've also never been to a scenic onsen."

"We should all go to a fancy rural onsen, then! To celebrate our return!"

"Gods, you're a genius, Yachi, anything to get out of the cold! And speaking of rural onsens," Tsukishima suggested; "We should take at least two weeks off in some forest hotel when we get back."

"And probably get ourselves therapy," Yamaguchi added.

"That too."

With all this talk, Hinata was actually beginning to get excited. Home seemed so close now, no matter home many kilometres away Yamaguchi insisted it was. He could almost taste the clear air of a Japanese mountainside. He would go back, grab his beloved red bike and cycle back and forth from school to house until his legs fell off. He'd run about on a court after a ball until he ran out of breath. He'd stay with Natsu and mum and dad for days on end, and he'd never get tired of their company. And he'd stay in the Karasuno gym until Daichi-san kicked him out and told him to bike home already.

Ah,  _home_ .

When they returned to their place between the claw machine and the whack-a-mole, they all arranged themselves back into that massive cuddle-pile as if they never left. They were all so soft and so warm, and that night Hinata slept better than he had in months.


	5. YAMAGUCHI - MALFORMATION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again

"Be careful out there," Yamaguchi warned, fiddling with Hinata's stolen coat to make him look at least a little bit presentable. Tsukki had said that Hinata looked like chimney sweep that got struck by lightning, and Yamaguchi wholeheartedly agreed. He attempted to brush the mud off his shoulders, before meeting his dead eyes.

It never failed to sink Yamaguchi's heart whenever he saw those eyes. He wanted them to come alive again, to burn again, to be happy again. Hinata was supposed to be bouncy and excitable, not...

Yamaguchi was a hypocrite; all of them were traumatised. But... Hinata seemed alive last night, when they all fantasised about their return home. And Yamaguchi longed for that light of life.

"I'll be fine, Yamaguchi," Hinata assured him, and looked up at him. "I won't be long. I'll be back before you can say 'Karasuno Fight'."

Yamaguchi took his face into his hands, and wished he had his fleshy hands back so he can feel Hinata's warmth properly. "I know, just... take care of yourself. Eyes 'round your head. If someone vaguely police-like approaches you; run and hide."

He'd expected Hinata to roll his eyes or assure him again. What he didn't expect was Hinata turning his head to nuzzle into his palm. "Roger that," he murmured, and smiled.

Hinata smiled. Truly.

He smiled again. His eyes reignited, even if it was for a few nanoseconds, and Yamaguchi was filled with liquid warmth. His little sunshine was coming back! Yamaguchi stood there dumbfounded, and when he became aware of the desire to hug him, to hold him, to take in his welcoming warmth, Hinata was already scrambling out of the exit hole.

_Oh my god, he smiled. Oh my god, oh my god._  


He found himself trying to imprint that expression into the deepest reaches of his long-term memory, still staring at the entrance where Hinata had disappeared. Yamaguchi wanted him back already.

"Hinata smiled," Tsukki pointed out from behind, and when Yamaguchi looked over his shoulder at him, he found him trying very hard to dust a light pink blush out of his cheeks.

"Yeah," he agreed, his insides were fluttering with giddiness. He knew he was no better than Tsukki, but should he really be fighting it? Things were finally looking up. Hinata was smiling again, his eyes had flickered alive.

Things were going to be okay.

Tsukki stepped up beside him, and both waited for a while before their eyes met.

It was still so weird to see him without glasses, his face somehow looked different without them. Not wrong, necessarily, just unfamiliar; his eyes were still a bit bloodshot, but a bit brighter too.

Things were definitely going to be okay.

They stared at each other for a long moment, before Yamaguchi broke their eye contact to focus on Kageyama and Yachi in the corner. Kageyama was still slightly woozy, but he had promised that by next morning he should be in full-commission.

Which was great, because they were going to need all hands on deck with the begging gig they had planned for tomorrow. A train ticket for an incredibly distance like the one they needed to cross was undoubtedly expensive, times five even more so, so they needed all the money they could scrape.

Yachi was keeping him company, her hands slowly combing through his hair as he napped. She hummed him a quiet song under her breath, and Yamaguchi found that to be incredibly sweet. Her voice was so beautiful.

Yamaguchi touched his cold metal fingers to the stitches on his throat, and swallowed uncomfortably. He missed his own voice; this mechanical excuse for a voice-box was really starting to get on his nerves. If he spoke in a tone louder than stage-whispering it would start to burn, and the voice wasn't even his own.

"Are you okay?" Tsukki asked him, regaining Yamaguchi's attention.

"Yeah," he said again, and gave a confident nod. "We've got everything ready for tomorrow, so we can take it easy for the rest of the evening."

He could see Tsukki slowly grimace at him, getting that 'calculating' look. For a moment he thought Tsukki would say something, and he usually would've; but he said nothing. 

Sometimes he missed Tsukki's voice more than his own.

He  _ didn't _ miss the night-time screaming, however.

They all had nightmares, yes, but Tsukki was unlucky enough to be the only one that developed night terrors. Countless times his best friend would wake up screaming or sobbing or both, sometimes even multiple times in one night. And it was always that same nightmare- the one with the wrong-faced man.

From what Yamaguchi remembered, the wrong-faced man was always the one associated with all of Tsukki's procedures. Tsukki would always completely break down after each session in the darkness of their sterile prison cell, passing out when he could cry no more, only for the viciousness to continue to haunt him in the dream world.

If only there was a way to take away his pain. If only he could take away all of their pain. There had to be something he could do, right? He couldn't just stand around and watch his friends continue to be tortured like this.

When they came home, the first thing Yamaguchi would do was get them all hooked up with a therapist.

Thank whoever was up there that at least last night was a relatively peaceful night.

Yamaguchi rest his hands on Tsukki's shoulders, understanding his best friend's silence completely. "Go take it easy," he encouraged him. "Best if y'distract yourself before night anyways."

Tsukki nodded gratefully. "Thanks Yamaguchi."

And Yamaguchi could only smile back. So while Tsukki went scouring for an arcade game to occupy himself with, he sat by the two on the floor. Yachi had stopped mumbling, she must've dozed off too.

Yachi and Kageyama slept a lot; a worrying amount in fact. Yamaguchi was even starting to get a little stressed about it; did the anaesthesia not wear off after all? Did they get a near-lethal dose the night before their escape? Did the anaesthesia alter their brains? Was that even possible?  _What if they went to sleep and they never woke up again?_  


Yamaguchi forced the thoughts out of his mind. Their chests were moving steadily up and down, and for now, they were peaceful.

Hinata should be back with dumpster-food soon, he'd wake them up then.

...Maybe if they had enough money left over after buying the tickets they could get themselves a nice meal? Yachi's offer yesterday really did seem incredibly enticing; and Yamaguchi too was tired of living like an actual crow.

What Yamaguchi wouldn't do to eat a normal meal. He was sure there had to be a fast-food chain in Russia, soppy fries was the living dream now. Add that to his list of things to do when he returned; he was going to stuff himself so full of junk food he'd give himself indigestion, and probably, knowing McDonald's, food poisoning. Tsukki wasn't fond of the fries they sold there, especially when they went soft (which is exactly how Yamaguchi liked them), and had once said; 'they probably fry them, use the remaining oil in a delivery van, and then reuse that same oil to fry the next batch.'

Ah, Yamaguchi missed going to the local fast-food restaurant with that boy.

He wanted to go home  _ so bad _ .

And they were going home! They had a solid plan now, everything was going to be fine.

He was going to see mum and dad again, he was going to hug them and hear their voices again.

He could hear Tsukki finally boot up one of the games across the landing. It announced it's awakening with a quiet bleepy-bloopy sound, like from one of Kenma-san's RPGs.

Kageyama must've recognised it as familiar too, for he began lightly twitching in his sleep. Yamaguchi took his raven hair between his fingers, and stroked his head until he calmed down again.

Kageyama looked so peaceful when he slept. He could sleep so deeply it would take an actual explosion to wake him; even in stressful situations such as these. In a way Yamaguchi was a little jealous.

A sudden beeping sound made his blood freeze.

He whipped his head up like a deer in headlights, his heart stopping for a few moments before hammering so hard against his chest he was sure his ribs would crack. It suddenly got hard to breathe. The beeping noise was bleeding in his ears, and even though he raised his hands up to cover his ears, it only beeped louder.

Kageyama and Yachi were gone. The warehouse's dark arrays of games were gone too. And the beeping was getting louder and louder and louder.

What was happening!? Where was it coming from!?

A cold hand rested against his nape. It was not metal, it was tight rubber; as if a corpse was wearing gloves. It firmly applied pressure until Yamaguchi complied and leaned forward and down until his chin rested on an equally cold, metal half-circle. A breeze brushed at his bare skin, and Yamaguchi realised that he was stark naked.

A voice began to speak, and the panic began to creep when Yamaguchi recognised that voice.

It was deep, but feminine, rough like sandpaper. Goosebumps spread across his skin and he began to hyperventilate. He recognised that voice, and that woman who it belonged to. She spoke in that language Yamaguchi did not understand, and yet he could tell by her formulated sentences and emotionless tone that she was reading off a list.

The hand never left his nape, and another metal band pressed down onto his head.

The beeping was louder than ever now, and out of the pitch black a red dot started blinking in perfect time. The plague of panic infected him fully then, and Yamaguchi tore himself back, not even paying attention to the pain in his throat as he screamed.

_No. No. No.  
_

_ Not this again.  
_

_Stop. Stop it please._

The cold hand pushed him back forward, the rough voice snapping at him to stand down, but Yamaguchi couldn't even if he wanted to. He bucked like a wild animal, his own screaming alien to him, and the beeping was still louder. The blinking red dot was still dancing before his eyes, winking at him in the distance. It zoned in on his right eye.

His eye was on fire, and Yamaguchi reared back, shrieking with agony, chains rattling and harsh voices shouting. His hands flew up to his face, with full intent to claw that awful eye out. It had to stop hurting once it was removed, right!? Right!? It had to! Anything to make it stop.

Hands grabbed at his wrists before he could plunge his fingers into his eyesocket, preventing sweet relief. Yamaguchi bellowed in complete hysteria, resisting and pulling with all his might in almost a violent frenzy. He got his wrists free almost effortlessly but before he could properly give himself any relief he was restrained again.

The beeping sound was gone. The blinking red light was gone. The voices were still talking.

"-chi!"

He tossed his head free and shrieked again, the pain transferring from his eye to his throat. His throat was wet and pulsing. He needed to tare his throat out!

"-guchi!"

_Get out, get out, get out of my head._  


Yamaguchi struggled against the binds, but there were too strong. He couldn't break free, his fake muscles were giving in. Voices were calling his name, and he tried to scream again but the wet phlegm in his throat turned it into violent hacking. His throat was tearing itself to shreds, bile and blood flooded his mouth as he coughed and spluttered like a drowning man.

"Yamaguchi!"

Is that-

"Yamaguchi,  _listen to me_ ," it was Tsukki's voice "you are  _not_ in the Institution, we've made it out. We are safe, you are safe, nothing is happening, none of them can hurt you anymore," he insisted, and even though he kept insisting Yamaguchi had no idea if to believe him or not. He almost couldn't breathe, his lungs were screaming for air.   


Though it was hard at first, Yamaguchi managed to grasp out the words past his buzzing ears. He was not in the Institution anymore, they made it, they've escaped. Nobody from there could hurt him anymore. Everything was going to be alright.

Even though the liquid was still dribbling out of his mouth, Yamaguchi managed to slowly calm down. His sight was blurred, almost badly pixelated. His body was shaking like a leaf, but he stopped struggling completely.

Breathing was still difficult, but manageable, and when there was an infinitesimal gap in the wetness he breathed out a weak; "Tsukki?"

"I'm here, we're here," Tsukki assured him. He dragged his gentle fingers through his bangs, and Yamaguchi's sight slowly, ever so slowly cleared.

_ The abandoned arcade _ . He was here. He was out. This was real. This was real.

Tsukki, Kageyama and Yachi slowly let go of his wrists, and Yamaguchi winced when the stinging in his throat made itself apparent again. He tried to say something, apologise, explain, ask what was going on, but all that came out was another cough of saliva and red. It was all leaking down his chin and dribbling onto his jacket. _Eugh_...

"How're you feeling, Yamaguchi? It looked like a bad one," Kageyama commented quietly. "You almost ripped your own eyes out-"

Tsukki shushed him, before he took Yamaguchi's metal hands in his, and his face was soft and open. "Is everything over?"

It took Yamaguchi a moment to recognise the words being spoken to him, but he eventually nodded his head.

_ Ow ... _

"I'll take him up to the roof to calm down," Tsukki decided.

"Shouldn't we all go up to the roof then?" Yachi questioned him without skipping a beat. "You know you-"

"You need to wait for Hinata, you know he freaks easily," countered Tsukki. The girl looked a little hurt, so Tsukki palmed at her cheek in reassurance, offering the same gesture to Kageyama when the raven also expressed his objection. "Call us down when he comes back, he shouldn't be long."

Tsukki stood to his full height, offering his hand to Yamaguchi, and Yamaguchi waited until Kageyama and Yachi backed away from reassuringly patting at him to take it and let himself be heaved up.

There was still blood in his windpipe.

The entire time they walked, Yamaguchi was leaning into Tsukki's shoulder, and he was backed up by the blonde when they climbed up the ventilation shaft, closing the hatch behind them. There was wind on the rooftop this time, but Tsukki shielded him from the gale as he guided them both into their spot between the two ventilation shafts. There were still cavities in the snow from yesterday.

The instant they settled Yamaguchi curled into Tsukki's side, and the latter wrapped his arm around his waist. The place where the former pressed his face grew damp in a matter of moments.

Shit- he didn't even realise he'd been crying.

"Sor-" he couldn't even finish that word.

"You don't have to apologise," Tsukki assured him, "It isn't your fault."

They didn't say anything more. Who knew how long they sat there for, weeks? Months? Yamaguchi had cried silently a couple of times, trying to move on. He'd coughed and thrown up every time the liquid in his throat got impossible to bear. Breathing fortunately got easier when the blood stopped coming and the metallic voicebox settled back into its wrongful place at the top of his windpipe.

Yamaguchi always hated the metallic taste of blood. Especially its aftertaste. Now he hated it even more.

He took a deep breath the first moment he could, and only half-regretted it when he added the smell of coal to his hated-tastes list.

Thankfully, despite the wind, the evening was quiet.

He focused on the physical world as much as he could; on the hushed sound of the wind, the occasional passing by of cars, Tsukki's steady breathing and his own.

He was outside. Sitting on a rooftop in the cold. This was not the Institution. He was out of there, they weren't going near his eyes again. They weren't going near him again.

He was out of there. They'd escaped. The fire had burned that bridge in every sense. They were never going back there again. Everything was going to be fine.

The woman's voice echoed in the deepest reaches of his memory, and Yamaguchi tightened his fists as his mind screamed to run for the hills. He didn't need to remember her now, he should forget her hollow eyes and hollow face and hollow voice.

He didn't want to think about her, he didn't want to think about any of them; the Institution Staff were more terrifying as the building itself and the machines it held.

_Don't think about them. The past is in the past, leave it._  


...No matter how many times Yamaguchi had said that to himself his mind always seemed to round off to the image of that old woman and her underlings. They had such distinct faces; as if their cheeks had been hollowed out throughout the too-many years that they'd been alive. While they all looked in their late thirties; Yamaguchi was sure the entire Institution staff were over two hundred years old.

A little nudge distracted him from re-entering the rabbit hole, and Yamaguchi raised his droopy eyes to meet Tsukki's.

"I know that look," he told him gently. "Focus on my breathing."

_ Yeah. Think about Tsukki. He's here. Don't think about the woman . _

The minutes drew by slowly, the chimneys constantly blowing out smoke in the skyline. Tsukki's breathing was deep and soothing, and Yamaguchi coordinated his breaths with his. He reeked of sweat and blood and alley-piss, but that was a smell Yamaguchi was completely used to by now, it didn't bother him as much as it did at first- the alleys down below smelled much, much worse.

They all smelled like that. They all needed a good shower, or a bath.

There was a shower at the Institution...

_ Don't think about the Institution. _

_You won't get over it if you don't address it. Think about the Institution_.

"Beeping," Yamaguchi whispered voicelessly at last. "Sounded like the eye-machine."

Tsukki stiffened like a statue at those words.

"Oh god, oh god I'm so sorry," he stammered, gathering Yamaguchi closer to himself. He shivered, his fingers were trembling and he continued to mutter into his messy hair. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry Yamaguchi I didn't know, this is my fault I didn't mean to oh god-"

"I know," Yamaguchi interrupted him, and coughing out another splutter of blood into the what was presumably blue Adidas tracksuit Tsukki was wearing. "Wasn't your fault. Y'didn't know."

"I hurt you-"

"Y'didn't hurt me," Yamaguchi strained. He hated his self-imposed abbreviations but they made speaking a little easier. "Not your fault. It's over now."

"That wretched game is off-limits," Tsukki snarled, his hold on Yamaguchi only getting tighter. "Fuck, we don't even know what other triggers you may have- what triggers the others may have too."

_When we find them out we'll avoid them_ , Yamaguchi decided, and closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"How're you feeling now?"

"M'kay."

A car drove past them on the road-that-smelled-like-coal. Maybe someone had finally made claims to that gecko-faced van that still stood parked outside?

The fingers curling behind his ears helped him calm fully down, and as more minutes drew by, the more relief he felt.

Could he sleep like this forever?

A horrendously loud robotic scream suddenly shattered the silence, and Yamaguchi’s eyes snapped open.


	6. KAGEYAMA - THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> —WARNING— THIS CHAPTER IS THE REASON WHY THIS FIC IS TAGGED WITH ‘GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE’  
> Alright with that out of the way, enjoy! :)  
> btw your comments and kudos make my day! Thank you everyone!

They were showing up more and more often; the flashbacks and the breakdowns. It was only a maximum of six days since they'd ran from the Institution, and now that their brains realised that it was over, they decided to reflect. Kageyama had no idea how to deal with them; whether they were coming from him or his companions.

It was Tsukishima who had first lost it completely, that second night they spent out on the streets; and the experience was unnerving for everyone. Nobody knew what to do at first, but they had managed to calm him down eventually.

Hinata had one soon afterwards, and the situation was just as painful for Kageyama as the first. They were alone when the ginger went through a seemingly abrupt meltdown and Kageyama was at a loss as to what to do, what had caused it, and how he could make everything better. Kageyama had held him for that entire morning until his little spiker calmed down, which felt like an eternity as his sunshine  _cried_ and  _hurt_ .

But Yamaguchi's ones turned out to be the worst.

His screams were the worst sound Kageyama had ever heard; he could hear Yamaguchi tearing his own voice-box to make that noise; it caused the pinch server physical pain and it was hearable. He had made that scream of complete and utter despair until his throat bled. Not only that, but he'd tried to mutilate himself further, as if to distract himself with self-harm.

Kageyama, Tsukishima  _and_ Yachi had barely prevented Yamaguchi from ripping his own eyes out; he was stronger than all of them combined. Every time he pulled his wrists free Kageyama felt death breathing on his neck.

Yamaguchi was the strongest one of them all now; Kageyama only now realised how much he had relied on the pinch server all this time. If only there was a way to take away all that pain from him.

He grimaced at the hatch Yamaguchi and Tsukishima disappeared through long after they were gone, as if it had any advice for how he could do just that.

"Do you think Yamaguchi-kun will be okay?" Yachi asked him quietly. Her eyes were glazed over as if she herself was about to burst into tears. Kageyama nudged at her pretty face with his own, how he'd seen Yamaguchi do countless times.

"Tsukishima knows him better than anyone," he assured her. "He'll calm him down."

Hopefully.

Quite a large part of Kageyama wanted to go up after them and take poor Yamaguchi in to his arms, and make everything okay, but if Hinata freaked out too then that wouldn't be much good either.

"How are you coming along though?" Yachi asked him as she returned his cheek-rub. "How are you feeling?"

A smile managed to sneak his way onto Kageyama's face. "I'll be up on my feet properly tomorrow," he promised her. She settled in the cage between his knees, and she delicately framed the right edge of his mouth, where the scar permanently pulled back the crease of his lips to show off his side teeth.

The moment he remembered about it, he looked down and let his bangs hide him, and Yachi retreated her hands. His face was absolutely hideous, 'deformed' was the word Tsukishima had used once. The few times he had seen his own face in the mirror he'd vomited; the others would too if they looked long enough.

"Kageyama-kun-"

"It's better you don't look," he insisted, shaking his head. His stomach coiled just thinking about it.

"Kageyama-kun." Yachi reached out to him slowly, as if confronting a snarling bear. Her sharp fingers threaded through his hair, and she ducked her head in an attempt to meet his eyes, but Kageyama flinched away further.

"I-I don't-"

"You're beautiful."

His breath hitched in his throat.

She was serious. What was she talking about? She was the one that was beautiful; not even his own mother would want to look at his face anymore.

"It's like a battlescar," Yachi tried, even though her sudden bravery began cracking under the pressure of his silence. "It's like saying you've survived, that it didn't bring you down, that you rose above it."

But would it be fair to lie like that?

"I'm horrifying though," he mumbled, almost too quiet for himself to hear.

Yachi's cold fingers slid against his cheeks once more. "I don't think you're horrifying, Kageyama-kun."

_You don't-_  


Kageyama couldn't fathom it.

_Do you see that? Look at how ugly you are now._

_You're beautiful._

Kageyama tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but couldn't.

"Let's not talk about this," he coughed out.

Yachi’s short claws were so delicate against his skin. When he dared to look up at her, she gave him a sad smile full of affection. "If only I could magically take away your pain."

"Yeah, I wish that too," he admitted. "Yours too."

It was then that Yachi stumbled over her words, and giggled humourlessly.

Forgetting about his earlier concern with his face, Kageyama hugged her tight. She was so small, and she fit him perfectly. How was it that both she and Hinata fit so perfectly into his arms?

His heart swelled with a feeling, and the giddy happiness started to rise again.

Maybe Yachi was right. Maybe he-

The sound of shattering glass shattered their vaguely-pleasant atmosphere. Kageyama jolted in shock, body locking up into the stillness of a statue.

Someone was coming. Someone was coming to take Yachi away. Someone was coming to take him away. The Institution staff!

Yachi whimpered quietly and started to shake. It was then that Kageyama realised that this was not the Institution. This was the arcade, and  _someone was in here with them_.

There was laughter and cheerful jeering in that strange language, but to Kageyama it sounded incredibly cold. A metallic clang made them both jump and shrink into each other, and when Kageyama slowly turned his head towards the noise he realised that he was in a perfect line of sight with the perpetrators.

They were four men standing there, young adults, maybe twenty if Kageyama was to place them in an age-range. They all had incredibly pale skin, and the same-coloured hoodies, and one of them wielded a baseball bat, and was swinging at one of the poor pac-man machines, while another took out a can of purple spray-paint and started scribbling on the wall.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

They need to get out of here.

Kageyama nudged Yachi off, who thankfully got the message and started to crawl towards the stairs to the veranda, and Kageyama was about to follow her when he looked back.

One of the men had turned his head towards him.

That man had evil in his eye.

Yachi gave a quiet yelp like a terrified fox as the man pointed to them, getting the attention of his three buddies.

_FUCK_ .

Kageyama stood to his feet, hoping that he could use his height as an intimidation method but quickly realised that two of them were taller than he was, and the other two weren't much smaller. They sneered and jeered at him, egging each other on with that annoying laughter. How could laughter sound so cold?

Kageyama took a deep breath and put up his hands in surrender. "We don't want trouble," he said, hoping that at least his tone would be clear to these guys, even if language wasn't.

The one with the can of purple spray-paint only mocked him, with an unflattering Japanese imitation, and the snake-like one took notice of Yachi cowering behind him, and wolf-whistled at her. Kageyama stepped in front of her and nailed the bastard with a glare, hoping that his body could shield her from their view.

"We don't want trouble," he repeated, more desperately this time, and tried to gesture at them to back off, to no avail. Are they that messed up in the head to gang up on two homeless kids? Are people really that sick?

What was he thinking, they'd literally just escaped from a place where people tear apart humans and put them back together for a living.

He definitely couldn't take all four of them in a fight, not to mention one of them was armed. He'd never even been in a fight, not even a petty school one. His heart was starting to pound weird, a tiny spark was starting to tingle at the very back of his mind, and he swallowed his gathering saliva.

"Yachi," he barked, backing up a cautious step. "Go. Now."

"Kage-"

"Go. To the roof." He looked back at her over his shoulder and gave her a desperate look. "Get Tsukishima and Yamaguchi."

The vile mockery made him whip his head back to the four advancing jerks. He flashed them his torn mouth and bared his teeth, curling his outstretched hands into fists. "Take one more step forward and I'll rip your legs out of your asses," he growled lowly.

His shredded face only got him minor plus points as one of them let uncertainty flash up onto his features for only a split second before he continued laughing with his friends.

He's just made a terrible mistake.

The sound of Yachi scurrying away gave him only temporary reassurance, because that was when the movement started.

The bat collided painfully with his arm, but Kageyama hardly noticed through the sudden rush of adrenaline. He flailed out his hands, managing to cuff spray-paint guy on the ears. His own ears were ringing when he threw himself at the one bastard with frosted-tips. He yanked the bat out of his hands but before he could properly use it, it was knocked out of his hands and he was slapped right in his exposed teeth. Two arms grabbed him by the shoulders from behind, and he attempted knock back with his head, but the asshole laughing behind him was impossible to hit.

Spray-paint guy was approaching from the front, and Kageyama lashed out with his leg and managed to catch him in the groin when he didn't run back fast enough. In came frosted-tips guy, who just laughed at the feeble attempt at defence.

Pain seared when the fist connected to his jaw, clicking it horribly and sending Kageyama sprawling to the floor. His head collided with the cold concrete floor, and he groaned upon contact, but before he could pick himself up a kick to his shoulder had him on the ground again.

One against three, how fair was that?

Yachi screamed his name, and Kageyama saw through blurring eyes that snake-man had  _ grabbed her_.

A blaze of white-hot fury flashed behind his eyes, and Kageyama leapt off the ground with strength he didn't know he had. He roared out in rage and rammed into the snake-scumbag, knocking them both to the ground. He should rip his face off just for that! The murderous spark in the back of his head was buzzing intensely, just shy of breaking completely free.

He threw his fists into the asshole's face with all the strength he could possibly push into his withered muscles. However he only got about three hits in before a kick to the cheek brought him down again. And another kick to the base of his spine. And another to the back of his head. And another. And another. And another.

They were still laughing.

And that was when a loud, animatronic scream pierced through the air. The sound shattered the windows, and the four attackers paused in their assault to see what exactly was going on.

Hinata had come back, and he was already rushing towards them, remains of dropped food behind his feet.

...Something was wrong with him. It was still Hinata... right? Still ridiculously short, still ridiculously ginger, with that same ridiculous face. And yet...

_That was not Hinata._

Spray-paint guy had started laughing first, but before any of his buddies could join in, Hinata reached out and stuck both clawed hands into spray-paint guy's mouth. He yanked up with his left hand and down with his right, ripping apart the man's jaws as easily as if they were paper. Spray-paint guy fell to the floor, convulsing and spluttering and dying. Hinata then grabbed frosted-tips guy, ripping off an arm as he picked him up like a ragdoll, before throwing him at the man that had made a run for the exit. Their heads clashed at a high speed and both toppled to the ground with a deafening crack.

Snake-guy had also made a run for the exit, but Hinata was much, much faster. He caught up and tackled him to the ground in an instant, embedding his sharp metal teeth into the shoulder before pulling violently back with a chunk of flesh. The scream snake-guy made was high-pitched and filled with pathetic, shaking cries for his life, but those were cut short when the middle blocker plunged a talon-filled hand into his throat, and ripped him open right down to the crotch.

Silence followed.

It was far too loud, and everything was cold, Yachi's loud hyperventilation served as the only sound which filled the suddenly empty arcade.

Kageyama couldn't even form a coherent thought, his brain refused to register what he had just witnessed. There was red everywhere.

_It was like the Institution. There was blood everywhere there too._

The-boy-who-looked-like-Hinata slowly stood to his feet, blood dripping from his hands and jaws like thick dangling ropes. His shabby clothes were torn, his usually tiny spine-ridges fully extended into sharp, jagged knives, and were his talons bigger? His mouth was hinged open like a viper's, far past the point of human possibility, filled with teeth that were huge and metallic and needle-sharp, pieces of flesh still stuck between them. His eyes were soulless.

He was a monster.

Kageyama wanted to run, but his shellshocked body would not move. He wanted to scream but nothing came out of his mouth, not even a gasp. He wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare but this was no dream. This was real life.

Yachi started quietly sobbing through her hyperventilation, and when the monster slowly turned his head to look at her, Kageyama threw himself up and over her body, the only thing he could do. It wouldn't do anything, he knew that already, but at least he'd buy her a few more precious seconds of life.

The soulless creature stared at them without emotion, and Kageyama started to tremble. It was wearing Hinata's skin, it was manipulating Hinata's face in all the wrong ways, and Kageyama's cheeks were starting to get wet. He couldn't stop shaking, and he started sobbing along with the girl he was covering.

_ That was not his Hinata. _

But before the creature could make any other move, the quietness was once again broken by twin shouts of horror, and Kageyama just gathered Yachi against himself, praying with all his might they'd be okay. He followed the creature's gaze up onto the veranda, where Tsukishima and Yamaguchi stood horrified. The olive brunette had already turned around to empty the contents of his stomach, while Tsukishima only covered his mouth his hands, his terrified eyes spilling everything that was unsaid. The smell of blood and vomit was beginning to be overwhelming when Yachi also decided to lunge forward and retch, and Kageyama's own stomach gave a howl of nausea. 

The creature looked from Tsukishima to Yamaguchi, to Kageyama and Yachi, to the four dead bodies on the floor, to his blood-stained claws.

And Hinata seeped back into that creature with a shriek of his own. He joined both Yachi and Kageyama in uncontrollably sobbing, almost choking on his own tongue, sinking to his knees and crying out in anguish, and Kageyama knew he was going to be hearing that sound for the rest of his life.

Kageyama really couldn't describe what happened next, even if he wanted to. There was a lot of noise, lots of shouting and crying, because nobody knew what do to or what to think. His head was ringing, white noise in his ears, and the pain of the fight making itself known all over his body. He struggled only a little when Tsukishima persuaded him to his feet. He was going to collapse, his breath was short, was he going to die?

Where was Hinata!? Was he alright? Was he back? Where was he?

Tsukishima's metal hand fitted into Kageyama's, and tugged gently to get him to follow. He said something, but it was indistinguishable, and his other hand found Yachi's, making sure she was still here. Still alive and still breathing.

Where was Hinata!?

Yamaguchi was padding slowly in front of them as they slipped through a shattered window, he was carrying something. Kageyama could make out the black-metalled legs sticking out from behind Yamaguchi, the only ones which ended in three long sharp talons, like eagle claws.

He must've called out his name, because Yamaguchi turned and clutched Hinata to his chest, whom he was carrying bridal-style. It  _was_ Hinata this time,  _undoubtedly_ , and Kageyama lunged forward hug him, angle awkward with Yamaguchi in the picture.

_I thought I lost you._  


As long as Hinata was here.

Tsukishima tugged lightly on his hand, and Kageyama reluctantly separated to walk in a slow step with him. His hand gently squeezed the metal one, and Kageyama wasn't sure if Tsukishima could feel it.

They packed into a small space, what that small space was, he didn’t know, but he didn’t ask. All that mattered was that Yachi and Hinata were in his arms, alive, even though he failed to protect them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to put this in the end of the previous chapter, but it’s still relevant. Although it’s up to your imagination, [this](https://youtu.be/lRG_80q0RCk) is what I imagine not-Hinata’s roars sound like.


	7. TSUKISHIMA - DEAD FLOWERS IN THE SAND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year folks! Hope this year ain’t a train wreck!

"The van!"

"Yamaguchi-"

"We're leaving. Right now."

"But-"

"No choice. We're leaving."

Turned out that the reason the gecko-looking van outside their arcade had been abandoned was that someone had locked their keys inside and didn't bother getting them out again. Whether the owner was going to return for it or had left it for towing didn't matter. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima broke into it with relative ease, and thanked goodness that it still had petrol in its tank. They didn't really think much about anything, took whatever amount of money they had saved up, packed everyone inside and drove off with Tsukishima behind the wheel.

He was the only one who knew vaguely how to drive; Akiteru-Nii had given him impromptu driving lessons back when he was getting his license. Coincidentally, he was also the only one in a relatively-stable mental state to be behind the wheel of a vehicle.

_Focus on the road. Keep the wheel steady. Don't crash. Don't die._  


For a driver who only knew how to operate a car in theory, he was doing pretty well. But for all his attempts to focus on the road, his mind kept wandering.

The shock still had his body stiff and breathing wobbly, and Tsukishima could still feel his heart pounding in his throat. His sight was blurring and maybe he wasn't as stable as he was telling himself he was.

Still, it was better to get as far away from that wretched city as possible, before further shit went down with authorities or someone worse. They'd left Norilsk around three hours ago, but Tsukishima kept pushing forward, though finding it harder and harder to do so with every minute that drew by.

He flicked his eyes up at his rearview mirror, before hazarding a proper look behind him. The back of the van had been quiet for quite some time now, and it looked like it would remain that way, at least for now.

Kageyama, Yachi and especially Hinata had been completely unconsolable, and even though now their tired brains had forced them all to shut down, Tsukishima could still hear their pained voices wailing like banshees in the forefront of his memory. Kageyama had a firm grip on their two smallest members, and even through sleep Tsukishima could tell that Kageyama was afraid that they'd disappear the moment he'd let them go. Yamaguchi was laying with them too, protectively curled around them like a mother around its young, though he'd also been scattered, his earlier panic attack only adding to the mix.

Things were supposed to get  _better_ when they left the Institution. Instead they jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

_Whatever would've happened if they stayed in the Institution would've been much worse_ , Tsukishima tried to reassure himself, and tightened his hold on the steering wheel.

_Focus on the road._  


How can he focus when he was just driving on a random asphalt road with absolute dick-knowledge about where he was going? The signs were still unhelpfully in cyrillic, and Tsukishima tried to stomp on his rising panic. He didn't understand a thing. He didn't even know if he was going in the right direction or not!

They  did have a plan; to reach Vladivostok, which lay on the other side of Russia. That city was a port town on the Eastern coast, so close to Japan. There just  had to be voyages to Japan they could either buy tickets to or stowaway on. That had been their main plan- to take the train down to Vladivostok and travel through the water back home. It would've been a peace of cake from then.

And that plan was fucking shattered. Tsukishima didn't even know if he was getting them any closer to their destination, or if he was going the entirely opposite direction.

Useless fucking piece of shit.

They were lost.

Tsukishima let out a shaking breath, still trying to hold onto his own sanity- as long as they were away from that shitshow then they should be good in the short-term.

The outside was pitch black even with full-beam headlights. The wolds were empty and endless, just as the lightless sky above them. Occasionally a roadside tree would lean out of the void, catch the headlights at a strange angle before heading off on its merry way back into the murky nothingness.

A part of Tsukishima kept waiting for something to leap out of the darkness, even if it was just a deer.

His skin crawled as if he'd just unwittingly stepped into an ant's nest. He hadn't even passed a single sign in at least half-an-hour. The radio was switched off, leaving behind only the rush of the car. His brain didn't seem to want to focus on the outside world.

Damn it.

Tsukishima grimaced away the image of the bloody arcade the moment it flash up behind his eyes. As if he needed another gruesome event to pile up on his PTSD plate; god he was not looking forward to sleeping tonight.

But that incident served as a wake-up call in a different sense, because Tsukishima realised that he had been, perhaps purposefully, avoiding one crucial question.

_Why_ the Institution had done what they had done. 

Somewhere in his subconscious he'd always known the answer, yet he'd pushed it so far down he hardly ever addressed it, not even to himself. Yet now it came as such an intense slap in the face that Tsukishima couldn't hide anymore.

These metal limbs, metal teeth, replacement organs, all of it; it was all added to make them better humans... no, not 'better humans';  _human war-machines_ . Efficient killers specifically made to take the lives of others. This strength wasn't given to them just because; of course there had to be a reason. Organisations with those kinds of resources did not rip people apart just for kicks.

God, society's underworld was a really terrifying place. Tsukishima had previously thought supersoldier science programs were just a thing in movies. How utterly ignorant he was. He wondered if the news had already leaked out onto whatever darkweb those bastards used, and if it wasn't just the Institution they had to worry about.

Think about it; human war-machines would be prized possessions, and Tsukishima knew from experience that some people would do anything, and he meant  _anything_ , to get what they wanted.

_WHY WOuld_ the Institution leak that information anyways? They had to want them for themselves; it was just them they had to worry about. It was just them. Nobody else. No other perhaps scarier organisations looking for them. Not at all.

Tsukishima tried to regain his focus on the road, but his thoughts were stronger than he was.

Even if they were war-machines, why would they go along with their intended purpose? They still had their brains inside their heads, they still had their personalities, albeit altered by trauma, but they were still them. Still human, still sane.

_Which is why it was bullshit_.

Hinata did not have a single malicious bone in his body, he was a cinnamon roll who only wished the best for anyone and everyone. He was so kind and considerate even if a bit obnoxious. He'd never wish any harm to anyone, let alone directly hurt someone; he was someone who felt bad for a spider being chased out its web. Hinata embodied sunshine and its warmth and  _he would never ever do something even remotely like that_ .

Tsukishima didn't know if it was his confirmation bias or what, but when he had looked at the person standing there over four dead bodies, he'd had the overwhelming feeling that that was not Hinata.

Whatever had killed those four thugs was wearing Hinata's skin as a flesh-suit, or had possessed him. Because that thing was not Hinata. It would never be Hinata.

And yet his eyes told him that it was.

It  _wasn't_ . It  _couldn't be_ .

That was something else. Something must've made Hinata do that.

...Had the Institution worked out how to reprogram a person?

Tsukishima almost swerved into a ditch with that thought. He steadied himself, trying to rationalise it away. No... they couldn't have... could they?

He only hoped that it wasn't like an unlocked mind-illness that would slowly take over Hinata's body like in one of those sci-fi movies.

Tsukishima risked another look back at the backseat. What would they even do if they lost Hinata? He didn't want to think about that.

The point was; there had to be something inside Hinata that made him act like that. But... whatever was inside Hinata was probably inside the rest of them too.

Tsukishima really had to stop thinking- he was really going to drive off the road at this rate. He did not like that thought. Not one bit. The idea of something other lurking in the back of his mind like a hidden tarantula, waiting to take control justifiably freaked him out. He'd like to keep his consciousness to himself thank you very much.

...Maybe it was just Hinata who had the murder-program installed into him? They all had different enhancements after all. But why did it have to be Hinata? Why couldn't it be exactly none of them?

Thinking in circles was seriously going to fry his brain. Tsukishima rubbed his throbbing forehead, and let out a steading breath.

_Keep going_.  


Tsukishima drove like that for a further fifteen minutes, following the winding road obediently and deciding to turn right on a t-section. A sign flashed by him, and though he understood jack shit of what it was trying to tell him, he noticed that the nearest place of residence was over 90 kilometres away.

He could make it; Tsukishima wasn't really comfortable in pulling over to the side of the road to spend the night- better have an actual sense of direction and placement than returning to wandering like lost souls unable pass onto the afterlife.

It'd be better if he spent as little time sleeping as possible; sleeping didn't do him much good in the first place. And yet his eyelids were beginning to get sticky.

Shuffling on the backseat woke him up a little, and Tsukishima made to look behind him, however Kageyama had already pushed past to pull himself up into the passenger's seat.

"Kageyama?"

Though the raven-hair didn't really answer, and instead pressed his cheek against the window to watch the void pass them by. Tsukishima glanced at him, it was so unnatural for Kageyama to look so incredibly small.

"Hey," he tried again, not really knowing what to say to him. Would Kageyama even want to speak...?

"Hey," Kageyama quietly replied, so quietly Tsukishima almost missed it. His voice was weak, and completely un-King-like and unsettling.

Though he supposed he shouldn't be talking; after all, he'd only seen the bloody aftermath of not-Hinata's rampage, Kageyama had seen the entire thing with his very own eyes.

Not to mention getting severely beat-up by those four assholes. Tsukishima's hands gripped the wheel as he understood completely. If he were in Hinata's place he wouldn't've even needed the influence of some fucking murder-parasite to rip the bastards apart limb from limb.

_They hurt him. Those bastards deserved everything that came to them._  


He glanced back again. Yachi didn't seem to be physically hurt, at least not much. Her body was still, her chest moving, steady. Yamaguchi had said that the amount she slept was not normal; she didn't even sleep this much when coming out of anaesthesia. That problem also concerned Kageyama, but his recent sleepiness could be written off thanks to his most recent attack.

Everything was happening at once, again. Everything was falling apart,  _they_ were falling apart. Tsukishima wanted to close his eyes and not have to see his companions deteriorate like this.

He lifted his gaze to the darkness in front.

A lifetime ago they were all normal. Everything was normal. Ever since the beginning of their study-sessions they had all gotten into the habit of hanging about together when their volleyball team was idle, especially between official matches.

Tsukishima still remembered one particular instance, after the tiring Johzenji match.

The halls had been almost empty, with sparse groups of fans or opposing teams hanging about in groups of four or less. Yet despite the setting sun painting the white walls a fiery orange-yellow and the tired atmosphere lingering in the air, Hinata had bounced up in front like a stupid bouncy ball. They had just played two sets against a highly reckless team, and while Tsukishima had known that Hinata's stamina was demon-like, he still had thought that it was borderline ridiculous.

"We're getting to play on! If we beat Wakunan tomorrow we'll play Dateko again!" Hinata had trumpeted, far too loud for the quietening halls. His number 10 jersey had flashed proudly between an unzipped black jacket.

"That is if Date-koyo beats who they're supposed to beat." Kageyama had been quick to correct him.

Tsukishima had only rolled his eyes, but Yamaguchi had been a better person than him. "How's your nose, Kageyama?"

"Oh, it's fine."

"Seriously," Yachi had said up at him with a gentle frown. "You could die out on that court, so you need to take care of yourself. That goes for all the rest of you too."

"We're not going to die during a volleyball match," Tsukishima had sighed at her. Back then, he was conflicted about how to feel about her. She was incredibly bright and smart, and incredibly cute and soft (give him a break he had been a hormonal sixteen-year-old boy), but she had tended to freak out about incredibly random things, and Tsukishima could never predict which ones. Her most confusing one was about getting shot after using the wrong bathroom in Pacifico Yokohama; that one still baffled Tsukishima simply because of the mental gymnastics Yachi's anxiety-riddled brain must've performed to achieve that logic.

"There's been people going into comas after volleyball matches," Yachi had insisted, though had shrunk back with a whine when Tsukishima had glared at her.

"Ah, but that's only because they continued with the game when they had gotten a concussion," Yamaguchi had tried to explain, his expression merging into an exasperated smile. His little flick of hair had flopped over just like a soppy french fry, and he had punctuated his statement with a yawn.

"With the amount of times you've been hit in the head with a volleyball, I'm surprised you hadn't had a concussion yet," Tsukishima had said to Hinata, who he could tell was trying to figure out whether that was an insult or not.

"I'm used to it!" He had decided to reply, and he had almost been vibrating as he fell into step with the rest of them, so they walked in a neat little array.

"I guess you're also incredibly thick-headed," Tsukishima had retorted, the opportunity too good to pass up.

"Yeah! I am!"

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi had erupted into boisterous laughter, and even the King and Yachi had gotten in on snickering along with them.

Tsukishima blinked, and the silent dark illuminated by nearly nothing made itself visible again. Fuck. Fucking hell. He was going to cry, he wanted to scream until he'd shouted himself hoarse. What could they have possibly done in their past lives to deserve all this?

"Tsukishima?"

Kageyama's frail voice broke Tsukishima away from his brewing meltdown, and Tsukishima turned to look at him. The King was looking down at his knees, not at him. He wasn't the slightest bit like the King of the Court anymore. Fuck, Tsukishima couldn't believe he was thinking this, but he wanted the Tyrant King to come back, even for a split second, even if it were to assure himself that everything was still  normal .

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

A knot started to tie in Tsukishima's gut. "What are you apologising for?" He clicked the indicator to turn left on another t-section.

"The arcade."

Tsukishima whipped his head round to gaze at him in shock. "Kageyama," he spoke gently, surprising even himself. "You don't need to apologise for that. It wasn't your fault we had to leave."

"That isn't my point," Kageyama shook his head. "If I had been stronger, Hinata wouldn't've had to... do that. I should've been able to drive them back-"

"That's bullshit and you know it," Tsukishima barked at him. "It was four against one, how were you supposed to achieve anything with that ratio? If anything Yamaguchi and I should've been there."

They should've been there,  _he_ should've been there, and everything would've been fine.

"I should've done more," Kageyama insisted, and shook his head again. "I should've done something, anything, I-I-I was useless I couldn't even keep Yachi safe I nearly lost her and-"

"Kageyama," Tsukishima hissed at him. "Stop."

Kageyama shut his mouth, and his wolfish-blueberry eyes gazed up at him in shock.

"First of all, you are not allowed to think like that." Tsukishima nailed him with a glare. "This isn't your fault. You didn't ask to be attacked like that. Whatever you did or didn't do, it's over. We've got to deal with what had happened now. At least we're all still alive."

_Please don't blame yourself. This isn't your fault._  


A small pat of a tear fell upon Kageyama's lap, and Tsukishima could hear is so loud against their silence.

"I'm sorry," Kageyama whispered after a long pause.

Tsukishima reached out to take his hand, and when the setter did not protest he interlocked their fingers.

They did not say anything else. Kageyama went back to looking outside the passenger's window, and Tsukishima was left to his own thoughts again.

He couldn't exactly feel the warmth of Kageyama's hand, but he could still make out the distinct shape. They were wide and wired, but still bore the figure of being incredibly worked. He ran his thumb over the knuckles, and tried to avoid the particular place where a small cable burrowed beneath his skin.

They drove like that for goodness knows how long; Tsukishima glanced at the clock on the dash, which was dully flashing 02:05. Had they really been driving that long?

By the time another sign flashed up, Tsukishima had memorised the characters for the nearest town. What that town was, he had no ideas, but if it was a residence then he wasn't complaining. It was better to settle down in a car park than in a pullover in the middle of nowhere. It was close now, it shouldn't be that long until they reached it.

And it wasn't. In just less than half an hour they crossed the boundaries to a small town who's name begun with what looked like the letter H.

Tsukishima breathed a massive sigh of relief when he slowed down to pull onto the side of the road. The stop wasn't smooth, and tugged a little forward as the engine spluttered, reminding Tsukishima that he was in too high a gear to be going this slow. He panicked and tried to calm the van down but it huffed in indignant offence and shut its own engine down.

What a dramatic bitch.

Tsukishima sighed, he shouldn't be angry at the van, it was the reason they got to probable safety, he should be a little more grateful. He patted its dash in tired thanks before deciding that their spot was good enough, they weren't in the way of anyone, so they should be good, at least for tonight. So he turned the van off completely, and took his feet away from the pedals. His legs burned in complaint but Tsukishima currently couldn't care less.

He turned to Kageyama, and tugged gently on his hand. The King whined in response, and Tsukishima could see more tears drop down onto his lap.

His chest tightened.

"Kageyama," Tsukishima whispered, tugging again. "Come here."

It took Kageyama a while, but he eventually mustered his strength to climb the seats once again. Tsukishima pulled his seat back and made room for Kageyama to scramble over lap and straddle his thighs.

In the bright lamplight Tsukishima got a full view of Kageyama's face.

It looked like someone had taken a barbed wire to his skin and just went to town. The right side of his mouth was frayed open right up to his ear, putting his side teeth into full view. Part of his nose was missing. The gashes under and over his eyes were deep and still red, and there was not an inch of his face that wasn't covered in raw scar tissue.

His pretty belladonna eyes were still intact, thankfully; but they were reddened and wet and huge tears were running down his scarred cheeks and catching on his chin. There was a line of blood leading from his gums, and a massive bruise against his jawline.

Tsukishima hesitated before he carefully slid his hands into his long, raven locks. His fingers felt a bump on the side of his head, and he wanted to click his tongue but Kageyama looked as if any noise could activate his flight-or-fight response.

It wasn't Kageyama who deserved that beating.

It was Tsukishima himself.

...This was all Tsukishima's fault. If he had just taken them both up to the roof with him everything would've been fine. If he had stayed down with them everything would've been fine. Instead Tsukishima had told Yachi,  _who was a flight animal rather than a fighting one_ , and Kageyama,  _who had just come out of an attack_ , to stay put. Because what? Hinata would've freaked if he came back to an empty arcade? He was the one who discovered the fucking roof-hatch, and the arcade itself! He wasn't nearly as stupid or ignorant as Tsukishima liked to believe he was. And did he really have to take Yamaguchi up to the roof to calm down? Sure, he thought at the time that he'd take Yamaguchi away from whatever had triggered his panic attack, but at that point he'd shut off that wretched beeping game, which  _he had turned on_ . He had caused Yamaguchi's panic attack in the first place.

What the actual fuck was Tsukishima thinking?

Blue eyes met yellow eyes, and Tsukishima could feel himself shrink.

This was all his fault. He had caused Yamaguchi's near-fatal panic attack. He told Yachi and Kageyama to stay and  _left them there alone_ . If he hadn't done any of that, that- that  _thing_ wouldn't've taken over Hinata. Tsukishima might've as well handed them all a return ticket to the Institution.

Here Kageyama was, sitting on his lap trembling and shattered and Tsukishima was sitting behind the wheel, because of course, he was the only one in a relatively-stable mental state.

_And why was that?_  


He'd just told off Kageyama for thinking it was his fault. And he was right. It wasn't Kageyama's fault. It could  _never_ be Kageyama's fault.

Tsukishima should be fucking grovelling right now.

"I'm sorry," he whispered shakily, then repeated himself a little louder.

Kageyama only blinked back at him. The tiny pearls of tears caught on his long eyelashes, so crystal clear up close, almost like looking through a macro-lens, and Tsukishima was startled by his lack of familiar hyperopia for only a couple of seconds before he too started to tremble.

"I-I shouldn't've left you behind," he tried, voice shaking like crazy. "I should've been there. I'm so, so sorry. God, it's all my fault."

He couldn't even put together an adequate apology. How pathetic was he?

Everything was slipping through his fingers, and he couldn't hold on.  Fuck holding on; every scramble he made to get a better grip was letting more leak away.

"You're here now," Kageyama whispered. "And if it's not my fault, it's not yours, either."

_But I-_  


_ It is my fault . _

Tsukishima tried to swallow back his guilt, even a little, as he took Kageyama closer to himself, and the wrecked setter curled against him instantly, his hands bunching up into the fabric of his tracksuit. He shuffled, as if wanting to press his chest even closer to Tsukishima's, and finally his head rested in the crook of his shoulder.

And only then did Tsukishima let himself wrap his own arms around him, one hand still tangled in the long, unkept hair at the back of his head, careful to not touch another bump, the other just above the bruised area at the bottom of his spine.

How much pain was he in...?

Kageyama's quiet sobs were like a die in the sun shot and aimed directly at him, but he could do nothing but hug him just a little tighter.

Tsukishima grimaced at the darkness outside once again.

He'd get them home, it was the very least he could do. If it redeemed him for this entire mess or not, it didn't matter. If he really was the one least hurt, he'd carry them all the way. He'd carry them to the end of his days.

Tsukishima let out a tiny 'shhh' against Kageyama's ripped ear, and whispered a quiet "it's going to be okay". Was he saying it to Kageyama or himself?

For now, he'd be their rock until they could pick themselves back up again.


	8. YACHI - IT’S SO QUIET

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

Kageyama had told her to run. And Yachi ran, as fast as her fake legs could let her, to the metal staircase to the veranda. Yet she looked back and she saw the setter, arguably the strongest of the Karasuno First Years (back when they were still the Karasuno First Years), who had put himself in direct, guaranteed danger to protect her, be pulled down and brutally pummelled into the concrete, and instead of yelling for help, rushing into action and helping him herself or doing anything remotely useful; she froze.

This wasn't like the tame situation where Tanaka-san or Nishinoya-san would come sailing into Shimizu-senpai's defence when the wrong bloke hit on her, which would result in, at worst, hurled slurs or evil death-glares.  _These people were hurting Kageyama and badly_.  


And yet Yachi could only stand and watch it happen in dumbstruck horror.

That was until one of the four men had grabbed her forcefully by the hips. His face was downright predatory, with a strange, aroused glint in his terrible grey eyes. He had said something to her, a word that sounded like 'shlyukha', and he'd tugged forward to press her tiny body to his slithering chest.

In that moment, the back of Yachi's mind had known what she should've done. She should've taken the short, sharp claws the Institution had cursed her with, and raked them against his face and awful hands. 

She only let out a terrified cry.

Kageyama had come to her defence almost instantly, but was kicked down once more, and Yachi  knew that this was time to get over her stupid fear and protect him too. It wouldn't be much, they'd still be outnumbered two to one, maybe even less with her tiny toothpick body, but she could've taken the attention away from him, taken some of the beating so Kageyama didn't have to bear it all. The buzzing spark in the back of her mind was begging her to act, to do something.

Her body couldn't move.

It was then that Hinata came in guns blazing... but then she was convinced she must've been mistaken. The creature looked like Hinata, it had the same face as Hinata and it would've made more sense if it  _was_ Hinata than if it  _wasn't_ ... and yet.

That ginger-haired monster was not Hinata. It couldn't be him. Being near Hinata felt like standing in the direct sunlight on a warm summer's day, even after the events of the Institution. Seeing this... this creature; it's presence filled Yachi with an intense feeling of true terror.

It was not Hinata. It wasn't. It wasn't.  It _wasn't_ .

Yachi refused to believe it was him.

The boy who lay beside her this morning was just that; a boy. And when Yachi looked at him, sleeping in her arms, she saw only Hinata.

Yamaguchi-kun was behind him, keeping a firm hold on them both, large enough to have tossed his thigh over both their bodies and still hook it over Yachi's knee.

...Where... Where was Kageyama!?

She jolted her head up, and didn't have to look around much before she noticed him curled up front (of what, she had no idea, but that didn't matter just yet) with Tsukishima-kun, grimacing in fright through his sleep.

There was a massive bruise blossoming on his jaw.

If she hadn't been such a coward, maybe she could've helped her setter. Maybe Hinata wouldn't've had to turn into... that.

Yachi looked back at Hinata. The skin on his cheeks had ripped, like multiple horizontal split lips, when he had stretched his mouth so unbelievably wide. Ichor, tears and blood clung to his eyelashes, and the red that had painted his lips, chin, cheek and sharp nose was crusted over and dried to black.

Yachi still didn't believe it was Hinata.

It was  _something else_ , she was sure of it. How did it follow them here? Was it with them the whole time? Why didn't they notice-

_Hinata_ had noticed.

He'd tried to warn her, up on that rooftop the night they'd planned out what they'd do after their glorious return. He'd been so freaked out about it he had  _cried_ to her, and stupid Yachi had thought it was just about an impending attack.

_I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen. Something is creeping up on us right under our noses and we won't even notice until it's too late._

That's what Hinata had said to her, and she had forgotten all about it. God why was she so stupid!?

_Stupid and useless._

Stupid and useless and a letdown; as a good manager, as a good friend, Yachi was supposed to be there for her boys. She was supposed to protect her boys. She couldn't do any of that.

What the hell was wrong with her?

It took a long, long while of silently crying into the polyester seats, before she sniffled and took a deep steadying breath.

If she was a failure then she had to make up for it. She couldn't lose hope, and she needed to do her part. Just... what that part was... she had no idea.

Hinata twitched suddenly, bringing Yachi's attention back to him. She really didn't want to think about the creature anymore, but it was such an enigma that not only terrified Yachi, but also completely baffled her.

It wasn't natural. It wasn't supposed to exist; she knew that with absolute certainty. She was so certain that she could feel the fact etched into whatever bone marrow she had left.

And yet it did exist. How could such a thing exist? She was sure it violated some, if not many of the natural laws life had set out. The creature didn't even look the same as Hinata! Sure, they had the same features but it was like she had been looking at an entirely different person, rather than at her beloved little middle blocker. The fact simultaneously assured and frustrated Yachi; the creature wasn't Hinata, but then what the heck  _was_ it!?

The worst part were its godforsaken face and its godforsaken eyes. That thing didn't have a soul, that was for sure. Its face was nothing like Hinata's. In fact, its face didn't look like it belonged to a person. It looked  _like_ a face, but it was somehow deformed without any visible malformation; it actually looked identical to the wrong-faced staff members that ran about the Institu-

The moment that thought occurred to Yachi, everything suddenly clicked into place, and her frustration, her guilt, her grief, everything she had been feeling evaporated and left behind only what the Institution had instilled in her; true terror.

......Some of the staff members as the Institution had those identical, malformed faces and same soulless eyes. They weren't common, asides from the apparent head of Tsukishima-kun's procedures, but they were there. They existed despite having no right to.

The creature had the exact same face and the exact same eyes as them.

Yachi began to shake as she snuggled up to the boy in front of her, tucking her head under his chin.

_Oh my God, Hinata, what have they done to you?_

The very comparison of bright bubbly Hinata to  _those_ left a nasty taste in Yachi's mouth. That comparison should never be made again. Hinata couldn't belong to the Institution; he couldn't! He belonged with her, with Kageyama and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi in whatever this place was. Together. They had to stick together.

Had... Had the Institution done this to the rest of her boys? Had they done it to her? 

God...

What if her mother saw her now? A half-finished metallic serial killer, armed to the literal teeth and made for the single purpose of ripping people apart. If mum, with her hard but kind gaze, saw her; the daughter that she had brought into this world and raised, now a machine of war... what would she think? What would she say?

Yachi shook her head to herself wearily, her eyelashes getting wet. She'd rather not think about that bridge until she had to cross it. When she looked up at Hinata, she found his eyes opened.

He was awake-

Hinata was blankly staring at her cheek, avoiding her gaze, his face fallen and his eyes lifeless and lidded. He was barely breathing; it was as if he didn't even want to breathe.

Yachi had seen this state before, this seeming balance between life and death itself Hinata sometimes entered after returning from particularly bad procedures. It was a defence mechanism, Yachi knew that- they all had their different walls they hid behind, even from the others. Tsukishima-kun, for example, broke down into unstoppable fits of sobbing that sometimes got so bad they triggered his gag reflex; Yamaguchi-kun gave into serious self-harming tendencies (which he still refused to open up about), Kageyama shunned contact and would sometimes refuse to touch anyone or anything; Yachi herself got into the habit of hibernating because at least when she slept she didn't feel a thing.

Hinata shut down into a near-catatonic state, retreating so far into himself it was impossible to even get him to flinch when they clicked fingers or waved hands before his face. None of them had ever managed to get Hinata out of that state; he came back when he was ready. The first few times Hinata stopped talking they'd all freaked out, but Hinata always came back after a few hours or so... (or a whole day, which had been the longest Hinata had ever been 'out', following that incident when they took away both of his legs).

Every time Hinata went into that state, the fire in his eyes died a little more, until finally it died completely. It was scary- watching that happen in real time down in the dingy, yet somehow sterile prison cell they were kept in.

But that night; that night upon the rooftop, Yachi was sure she saw some sparks into that pile of charred ashes. It had lifted her spirit more than the promises of their welcome-home-fantasy, just the knowledge that Hinata was beginning to strike the flint and steel together to relight the flames once more had her assured that everything was going to be okay.

And now Hinata was back in his defence state, which, Yachi realised, would take that life away from his eyes again. It would land him back at square one... would it push him in the other direction too?

Yachi shuddered violently. _Don't think about that,_ _ don't think don't think - _

A gentle hand snapped her out of her spiralling thoughts, and she jolted up to meet Yamaguchi's heterochromatic eyes. Normally they would startle too, but this morning they were steady, and concerned.

"Yachi-san," Yamaguchi-kun rasped out desperately. "Are you hurt?"

_Why are you worrying about me? You're the one that nearly hurt himself, besides there's more pressing matters right now_. Yachi thought, slightly hysterically, but managed to shake her head slowly. "Are you?"

In reply Yamaguchi brushed her matted hair out of her eyes, and visibly swallowed before whispering out; "I'm fine. I'm sorry."

She wasn't going to lie, the confusion did manage to calm her down a little. But seriously, Yamaguchi had nothing to apologise for. He was the one who had just went through a violent panic attack.

"It's okay," she assured him, taking his hand. "I'm sorry too."

Yamaguchi-kun furrowed his eyebrows at her, and palmed at her cheek, before bringing her and Hinata closer to his chest. He brushed Hinata's hair with his cheek again, before skewering his eyes tightly shut. He seemed to pray for a moment to their old gods, if they were still watching past the Japanese borders oh so far away, and after he opened them again he noticed Hinata's crestfallen, withdrawn face, and terror snuck into his gaze.

"Hinata-"

"Yeah," Yachi confirmed it for him quietly, and wasn't able to stop herself from pressing into the ginger's collarbones, and silently prayed too, that he'd wake up and he'd be himself and that he'd come back to them and that everything would be okay.

Yachi and Yamaguchi lay there with him silently for so, so long. The world outside turned from pitch darkness, to navy, and finally paled to the frosty blue of midday.

There was a sob from up front, and Tsukishima-kun's voice echoed hollowly after it.

"Shhh, it's okay, calm down. We're here, we're alive."

Yachi looked up, and found herself face to face with Kageyama.

Kageyama had very pretty dark blue eyes, like a shadowed side of a mountain. He had lost a lot, but Yachi was forever glad he had kept his eyes.

She teared up, and her body lurched up to meet his. Tsukishima's squawk of protest went unheard as they both locked each other into a tight embrace. Kageyama's arms and shoulders were still broad, still so strong as they wrapped around her supple little frame, his forehead pressing desperately into her shoulder as Yachi wrapped her own arms around his neck.

His heart was still beating. Thank God.  _ Thank God _ .

They started babbling at the same time, Yachi wanted to say everything at the exact same time, yet tears and breaths came in the way as what came out instead was a blubbering mess. She had no idea what Kageyama-kun was saying either, his rambles also shaking and wet, yet she could make out the stuttered mantras of apologies and promises.

What had he to apologise for? He fought with all his might, she didn't fight at all. Yachi would be apologising to him for possibly the rest of her life. She didn't think she'd ever let him go again.

It was a while before they quieted down again. Tsukishima helped them and himself into the back alongside Yamaguchi, where they trapped Hinata in the middle and clung to each other like their lives depended on it. They probably did depend on it; these boys was all that Yachi had now.

The silence was heavy, but not unfamiliar. They usually sat together in almost-silence down in the Institution; she was sure she had already mentioned this before.

A few hours later Hinata blinked fully awake.

"Yachi? Kageyama?"

His whisper shook Yachi to the very core, and she felt as if someone had taken the weight of huge rocks off her heart. Her hand brushed aside his hair. "I'm here, we're here," she assured him, and Kageyama reached over her so he could properly touch his littler spiker too. "Are... are you here?"

Hinata slowly and unsurely nodded, croaking out; "I think so."

"Okay," Yamaguchi offered. "What's the name of our teammate who wears number eight?"

Hinata answered instantly but forlornly. "Narita-san. Narita Kazuhito."

It was him.  _Undeniably_ him.

"...What happened to you?" Tsukishima hesitantly asked him, and for a moment Yachi feared that the question would make Hinata shut down again, but his face didn't even flinch. His eyes had been murdered again, not even smouldering. He looked utterly dead inside.

"I don't know," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

There was unease in the air now, so thick it could be cut with a knife. So Yachi hadn't been the only one wondering what on earth had happened with Hinata.

Had they figured it out too? Or were they still blissfully unaware?

"Can... can you remember anything at all?" Yamaguchi hazard asking, drawing Yachi back from her thoughts.

"I remember everything," Hinata replied quietly. "I didn't black out, I knew what I was doing but..."

He hesitated for a long minute.

"When I saw those big guys and what they were doing, I was scared," he began. "And then I was angry. I was planning to be a decoy, to cause a distraction and get them away... but there was something in the back of my head." He paused again. "It was... buzzing and whispering but it didn't have any words. It was small at first, but when I heard it tell me to attack, I agreed, and that was when the buzzing spread over my head. It wasn't painful, or annoying; but its thoughts weren't mine. But it told me they were mine, and it felt like they were mine, but they weren't. I don't... The moment it took over, I couldn't see colours and... and I felt empty inside."

His description sent a nasty chill down Yachi's spine.

"Hinata," Yamaguchi was the first to break the silence after Hinata's words. "At least it was only temporary, you're back now. It wasn't your-"

"It  _was_ my fault," Hinata cut across him with a surprisingly forceful snap. He sat up, despite the arms entangled with his body, and made to shimmy away. "I had listened to it. I was fully on board with what it was telling me to do. I  _wanted_ to kill them,” his hands curled at his temples “-and I did, without any second thoughts."

"Hinata-" Yachi was the first to leap up. Her hand grabbed him by the wrist, and when he turned to look at her, his expression was wrecked with sorrow and self-disgust. Yachi had never seen Hinata look this distraught; could she even help him? She had to try. "Hinata, if you hadn't've acted, both me and Kageyama-kun would've been beaten to death. You did what was necessary. You  _saved_ the both of us. And I... I wanted to thank you for that."

Hinata looked at her with an expression of intense emotion that she couldn't even name. His eyes were watering. "I just murdered four people in cold blood," Hinata quietly told her. "I could've done literally anything else and it would've been better." He shook his head slowly. "What if it takes over me again? What if it gets us into even worse trouble than we're already in? What if I turn on you? What if I-"

"Don't you dare finish that!"

Kageyama's roar had made them both jump. Yachi was yanked back by Yamaguchi just in time as Kageyama's fist caught onto the front of Hinata's blood-stained sweater.

"You are not allowed to say things like that," Kageyama threatened darkly, though through his anger Yachi could hear his distress. "Don't even think like that!"

Tsukishima tried to pull him gently away, but Kageyama tore his arm away from his grip and narrowed his eyes further.

"I didn't recognise you," Hinata said, his voice frail and barely hearable. "When I looked at you back then, I didn't recognise you or Yachi. I would've... If I hadn't've snapped out of it I... I could've-"

"I said- don't even think like that!" Kageyama screamed louder, ignoring Tsukishima's attempts to calm him down. "I know you, you fucking dumbass, and you're too much of a wimp to raise your hands to anyone, let alone us. You'd never hurt us."

"Kageyama _look at me_!" Hinata roared back. " _I'm a monster! _ It doesn't  _fucking_ matter what I used to be like! The Institution made me a monster and-"

"That's bullshit and you know it!" Tsukishima hissed, deciding to throw pacifism to the wind. "You said yourself that those thoughts aren't yours, so why are you suddenly acting as if they are!?"

Hinata hung his head. "Because I don't want to hurt you," he admitted. "If I hang around I might do just that and I won't be able to stop myself. It'd be better if you buried me in the snow and let me freeze."

Yachi flinched.

"What the actual fuck is wrong with you!?" Kageyama screamed.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind!?" Tsukishima shouted at the exact same time.

Yamaguchi let go of Yachi and rested his hand on Hinata's shoulder. "Hinata," said he. "I hope you get it through your thick skull that we're  _never_ doing that. Whatever the Institution put inside you they probably put it inside the rest of us too; you were just unlucky enough to have it unleashed first."

"But-"

"Even if you do attack us, which I heavily doubt you will," Yamaguchi continued hastily, his words also putting restraint on the pissed-off duo. "We'll manage. You're not the only monster the Institution has created."

Hinata's hostile sadness melted away into grieving sadness, and Yachi made to move in a hug him again, hopefully deescalating the situation in the process, but Yamaguchi was quicker than she was. He took Hinata's metallic hands in his, but the ginger refused to meet his eyes.

"It isn't your fault, no matter what light you shine on it," he continued, his whispering surprisingly level and calm. "I think it's me who owes you an apology, actually."

Huh?

"I should've been there," Yamaguchi elaborated. "If I didn't have that stupid attack, we wouldn't've been separated and put into a situation where-"

"As if that's your fault!" Tsukishima cut across him, and Yamaguchi fully flinched at the raise of voice. "You told me that you react badly to beeping noises, and who the hell played a game with beeping noises on full-fucking-volume?"

Yamaguchi opened his mouth to protest but Tsukishima didn't let him get even a squeak in.

"And did I actually need to pull you to that fucking roof? It's because of me that we got into that situation where Kageyama and Yachi had to literally fight for their lives-"

_No- no that was wrong._

"I didn't fight at all, Tsukishima-" Yachi had began to say, but Kageyama had began to shout louder than any of them.

"And I should've fought better! I'm supposed to be a super-human-war-solider but I'm about as useful as airbags on a motorcycle! I couldn't fight for shit!"

"This is not a shonen anime, this is real life! No-one is expecting you to fight like fuckin' Naruto!"

"If the murder-instinct had taken over me and not Hinata maybe I would've!"

"Don't you dare wish that upon yourself, you stupid idiot! Did you not hear a single word I just said!?"

"Can you all please stop blaming yourselves!? Like I said, it's my fault for having that attack in the first pla-"

"Can you shut the fuck up about that!? Going into a panic attack is not your fault and-"

Yachi couldn't take it anymore.

"CAN YOU ALL PLEASE STOP FIGHTING!?"

It was the first time Yachi had ever raised her voice beyond 'cheering'-decibels, and the barbaric yell that had escaped her lips had her actually shocked for a moment, but at least she wasn't the only one. Silence had followed her screech, and the bewildered glare from four pairs of different eyes.

But their attention was not nearly as frightening as it used to be. It was rather sad actually; their bloodshot edges, their fearful, dilated pupils, their deadness.

"Please," she lowered her voice down to a more comfortable whisper, and tears started to roll down her cheeks again. "We can't fall apart now. Please, let's not fall apart. We-we... please let's not..." She couldn't say anything past the lump in her throat, so she just resorted to shaking her head and trying to catch her breath.

Kageyama’s arms were the first to embrace her. When their cheeks pressed together, wet pressed against wet. It was then that Yachi abandoned all attempts to hold back. She cried as loudly as her voice would let her, and soon she was joined by four other voices. Their bodies were firm but trembling and she clutched to them as tightly as she could. Her boys' cries were there alongside hers, and she could only hope they wouldn't be heard.

They'd cried with each other so many times... they had never wailed their souls out together as if they had offended them in some way.

She felt the tears mix with spittle from her open mouth, and the growing wet patch on her back where Yamaguchi rested his head. Yachi was sure she'd shout herself hoarse, until her own throat bled. Her nose was beginning to run.

* * *

Yachi's eyes still hurt several hours later, when she'd pulled herself into the passenger seat and watched the world pass her by as she pressed her temple to the cold window.

Everything was silent now. Nobody wanted to mutter so much as even a word after screaming for goodness knows how long. Only Tsukishima managed to mumble a quiet; "petrol station" for his explanation before shakily taking his place before the wheel again. Hinata and Kageyama sat separated on each side of Yamaguchi, who's head was tilted back with nowhere to lean on.

How long ago had they left Norilsk? How far was the city of nickel-mines and dark grey skies and black snow? Yachi had thought that she was growing fond of that place, the arcade, the strange concrete jungles, the chilly internet cafe, the street-that-smelled-like-coal, the restaurant across it which threw out a lot of disgusting food, the roof and the very-illegal view, but in all honesty, it'd be a blessing if she never had to think about that god-forsaken city ever again.

Now that she was looking out the window, she could only see almost-barren fields of white, occasionally sprinkled with trees. There were entire forests far on the horizon. It was a little like the landscapes back in the abandoned-church-village.

If she remembered correctly, from the map of Russia they had pulled up back at the Internet cafe, they were going to have to cross the deadly siberia region in order to get home. Yachi had not read flattering things about road conditions, or wild animals. She wondered dully if they should abandon their saviour-van and just try to hop on a train instead.

Russian winters had the reputation that they did for a reason.

She had always been caught up in worrying about the dangers of her own home, of all the shady buildings, the active volcanoes, the less than savoury people that hid between the kind ones. Yet despite all of its flaws, she realised now, it was good living there. It was safe if you knew how to behave. Japan was imperfect, just like every country in the world, but it  was home.

And now she was in a foreign land, and she had no idea how to behave, how to survive. She wouldn't last even a day out here in the wild.

Some people would consider _this_ their home. If they found themselves in Japan, between rice fields and volcanoes just waiting to erupt and sakura trees, would they long for harsh winters, snow-covered tundras and frozen rivers?

Yet despite its dangerous unfamiliarity, Yachi couldn't deny that Russia was stunningly beautiful.

"Japan's better," Hinata's voice came from behind her, making her jump. Had she been talking out loud this entire time!?

"You just said 'Russia is stunningly beautiful'," Yamaguchi pointed out helpfully, voice quieter than usual. The edges of his mouth were still a little red. "And yeah, now that I properly look at it, it is pretty."

"Japan's better," Hinata stubbornly kept to his guns. Yachi didn't need to turn around to know he was pouting, holding his chin up on a metal palm.

"I have to agree with the shrimp," Tsukishima-kun mumbled. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth before the van lurched forward and Yachi was thrown into her seatbelt. "Sorry," he apologised and shrunk back sheepishly, scrambling to steady the van again.

"Could you not jolt the van?" Kageyama asked him quietly after he coughed out and started tugging on the locked seatbelt. His statement was accompanied by harmonised groans of Hinata and Yamaguchi and Yachi herself.

Tsukishima clicked his tongue and twitched his fingers on the steering wheel. "I'm trying my best here, this is the first time I'm driving a van."

Yachi gave a high, hysterical laugh and Hinata knocked his forehead into the window, while Kageyama simply looked at him with the utmost concern. "...How much experience do you have with driving, exactly?" Yamaguchi quietly and hesitantly asked.

"My Nii-chan taught me a couple of things when he was getting his licence. I've sat behind the wheel of a car once but I've never been on the road. And I've never driven a van," Tsukishima slowly admitted, to Yachi's dismay.

"We are going to get into a car crash," she mumbled into her metal palms.

"Ha-Have some faith in me!" Tsukishima gasped at her, as if she had been the last person he'd been expecting doubt from. "I've gotten us this far... and this van is really forgiving."

"We are going to get into a car crash," Kageyama repeated Yachi's statement with a sigh.

"Keep talking like that and you're going to jinx it," Tsukishima snapped at him, retreating into his prickly shell (it was another one of his walls he hid behind, but that one everyone was accustomed to by now). "I'm doing everything I can, really."

"Tsukki, we do appreciate it," Yamaguchi-kun assured him, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. "We're just... worried."

To make up for her earlier outburst, Yachi reached out and placed a gentle hand on his thigh. "We know you can do this, Tsukishima-kun."

Tsukishima didn't really reply, instead just turned his eyes back to the road, however he did look more at ease. Yachi retreated back, not really certain at all, and returned to looking silently out the window. The road was covered in snow, but if the gecko-looking van was forgiving maybe it could help Tsukishima get them through safely.

She patted its doorframe gently, a silent plea for the white vehicle to keep them safe. It had gotten them out of Norilsk, and hopefully it could carry them across perilous Russia all the way home.

Cars were one of Yachi's top fears... they had held the number three spot pre-Institution (only outranked by kidnapping (ironically) and stabbing). All those terrifying PSAs and presentations, where firemen, policemen and first responders came in to talk about the dangers of young drivers on the road, the details they gave about shattered bones and decapitations and gruesome things like that- it made sense that the machines barreling down asphalt roads at hundreds of miles per hour would make it at least into her top five fears.

They had dropped down to about number twenty-two when the Institution entered her life, but now she could feel the road-vehicles climbing up the ranking once more.

Although they would never top her now-number one fear- the Institution creature.

She was thinking about it again. Yachi pulled up her knees to her chest and tried to stop herself from whining.

Keyword was 'tried', as a tiny sound escaped from her, but in the silence it was louder than she was comfortable with.

"Yachi-san, you doing okay?" Yamaguchi-kun whispered from the backseat, but Yachi found that she could not answer him.

Should she bring it up?

Judging by their outburst, they hadn't yet made the connection. Yachi would usually be doubting herself but this time she was certain that she had found the missing piece. If they could understand what that creature was and how it operated, they could properly deal with it; just like Yachi had promised Hinata that they'd do up on that Norilsk rooftop. Maybe if she discussed this with Tsukishima-kun and Yamaguchi-kun, they'd have their own ideas and they could figure this out together. Besides, they were a unit. They had an agreement that there would be no secrets between them; if something was wrong then everyone was to know about it.

But, would them knowing really be the best course of action?

She knew that Tsukishima had come out of the Institution most afraid of the wrong-faced people, just like she left most afraid of fire. Not to mention Hinata...

He already looked so devastated about this whole ordeal; the last thing she wanted to do was to hurt him more.

"Yachi-san, are you okay?" Kageyama got her attention, and Yachi realised that everyone was looking at her. "Are you going to have an attack?"

"N-No," she shook her head. "I'm fine. I-It's just..."

Drat, she'd started talking. What was she to say? Would telling cause more damage? Not telling them would protect them, right? Yachi wanted to protect them.

But, they needed to figure this out. What if something like this happened again? What if the creature came back, and it's parasitic influence only got worse from there? If she didn't tell, it could do much more damage in the long-term.

Besides, she’d made Hinata a promise.

"Pull over."

Tsukishima's eyes widened a little, and began to question her, but Yachi told him; "We have to talk. Pull over."

"Okay, just give me a few moments," Tsukishima slowly agreed, clearly uncertain. Yamaguchi caught her eye, and he gave her a questioning gaze. Yachi just shook her head.

She just hoped they wouldn't start screaming again. If they fell apart, Yachi would never forgive herself.

In fifteen minutes Tsukishima had managed to pull into a small parking lot at a minuscule roadside stop- petrol station, a few plastic toilet cubicles, a fast-food joint and nothing more. The van didn't stop smoothly, but Yachi didn't complain even when it tugged forward again and coughed in complaint before deciding to shut itself off. Tsukishima-kun groaned and pressed his head to the wheel and groaned.

"You'll get it eventually," Kageyama told him, and Yachi broke off from her internal warfare to notice the uncharacteristic sweetness in his voice. It was still a little bit jarring hearing Kageyama talk to Tsukishima like that, and vice versa, considering how they started off (i.e smartass comments, yelling and threats of violence). There were still smartass comments and yelling, but it looked like they finally got over their hatred for one another.

"Thanks King," Tsukishima sighed out, before he sat back up. "I think we should call it a day."

"It's for the best, it's starting to rain."

"What did you want to say, Yachi?" Hinata asked, bringing the attention back to her.

Yachi swallowed before swivelling round in her seat to face them all. "It's about Hinata's murder-instinct."

And there it was; the instant souring of the calm mood they had. Why wasn't there an easier way to speak about difficult things?

"What about it?"

"Did any of you get the feeling that it wasn't Hinata when he was under the influence?"

Kageyama perked up. "You felt it too?"

"What do you mean; wasn't me?" Hinata cocked his head to the side, though his voice had a little hopeful tint, and Yachi's heart fell further.

"Now that you mention it," Yamaguchi nodded. "Yeah."

"Me too," Tsukishima put in.

Yamaguchi turned to Hinata and patted his head. "See? It wasn't you." He gave him a reassuring smile as the latter snuggled up to his chest.

"Well, I don't know if I should be glad that I'm not evil-" Hinata murmured "-or be horrified that there's something ‘other’ in my head telling me what to do."

"We can deal with whatever's inside your head, what matters is that we don't lose you," Yamaguchi assured him again and pulled him into his arms.

...She could just stop here. Stop here and not ruin them.

"Yeah, the murder instinct isn't Hinata. I think I know what it  _is_ ."

Oh no.

"You do?"

Yachi paused and looked down at her knees.

"W-When Hinata was under it's influence, his face changed."

"It did?"

"It did," Kageyama confirmed again.

"We didn't see it," Tsukishima elaborated. "We just saw the carnage."

"It was really unsettling," Yachi continued, and she hated every word that came out of her mouth. "But it was... familiar. It was the identical.... it was..." She took a deep breath. "It was the identical face the wrong-faced people had back in the Institution."

The resulting silence was so loud, but it didn't last long, broken by the sound of Hinata beginning to sob.

"We're in way over our heads here," Yamaguchi declared weakly, before correcting himself with a newfound resolve. "We'll figure this out, it's okay." He let Hinata clutch onto him and cry. "It's okay, it's okay."

That was how they ended up huddled together in tears for the second time that day.

* * *

It was well past three am when they stumbled into the fast food joint, for fear of starving. Yachi's head wouldn't stop spinning, and it didn't hurt when her inside had decided to begin to sting. They all genuinely looked like they belonged in a crackhouse, but at that moment they had all lost the capacity to care about their appearance.

The place was empty, save for the disgruntled mid-twenties employees who for some reason did not seem to care either about the fact that they were covered head to toe in muck and blood, some guy working on his computer (at this hour?) and two other homeless-looking folk sitting together at the very back. It was raining heavily against the dark outside, the rushing water louder than the awful Russian pop playing quietly over the speakers above. They sat around a plastic table in plastic chairs together but without a word.

The meal did not cost much, and was not as filthy as their typical Norilsk-ian dinner, but at one glance it could be deduced that it lacked any nutritional value. The burgers were tasteless and the fries horrifically undercooked (Yamaguchi refused to touch them after the first bite), and they ended up drinking only the flat coke and watered-down sprite.

Yachi decided that she wasn’t hungry after all.


	9. HINATA - BREATHE YOUR LAST

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING — This chapter has mentions of being suicidal. If that area is sensitive to you, please skip this chapter.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos and comments everyone!

When his claws left the flesh, there was a tiny 'shing' sound, like the sheathing of a sword. Tendons and blood and muscle hugged close to the black metal, staining it even darker. Hinata exhaled his final breath; he had not taken in unnecessary air since the buzzing had started.

His lungs opened further than they used to, and with one pump of the heart his body resumed its clockwork-like life. He did not even need to catch his breath.

He looked up at the target. The man's head tilted back in a permanent state of agony, the open wound trailing like a canyon from the underside of his chin right down to here, where Hinata had just taken his hand out.

His legs did not burn when he stood up, and the buzzing in his head congratulated him. _That was spectacular_ , it praised him without words, and yet Hinata felt nothing. He took in another breath, feeling the previously disharmonied body finally click into place and work like it was made to. Fake organs snapped into full functioning, surrogate bones brandished like the weapons they were, and he could finally stand painless over a successful achievement.

A sharp yet small whine had him turn his head. Had the pins and needles lied to him? Was there another assignment needed to be taken care of?

There was a girl and a boy on the floor. They were both trembling and whimpering while they looked up at him with wide, fear-filled eyes. Hinata could tell their faces were pale, even through his greyscale vision.

Past the buzzing, his mind whispered; "I know them."

_I don't_ , the buzzing brushed off his thought.

It was right, Hinata couldn't recognise their faces. Why did he think he knew them?

...Why had he jumped in to save them then?

_Because I told me_ _so_ , the buzzing, now irritated, snapped.

"Because I know them and I needed to protect them. They are most precious and I will do anything-"

_Because I told me to do so._

There was more screaming, and Hinata tilted his head up to see. Two more boys, similarly scarred and similarly horrified.

"I know them too."

_They are just soldiers._

"I do know them."

_I don't know them!_

"They are all my everything. How could I forget them?"

His hands were bloodied, and Hinata could feel the emotionlessness leave his chest in the wake of true horror. He could still the see the final man, laying beneath his feet.

He was dead. Brutally murdered; with an open wound trailing from the underside of his chin right down to the lowest point.

His body clicked out of place, the red flooded his vision, and the horrifying truth dawned upon Hinata the moment the buzzing influence retreated back to the deepest reaches in the back of his mind.

He'd just killed a human being. He had just killed four people.

* * *

The morning was cold, but then what morning wasn't? Hinata blinked open his sticky eyelids reluctantly, but he did not move his cheek from the cold floor of the van. His lungs were tight and his diaphragm was burning and his skin was almost numb with how cold it was. His prosthetics were completely frozen, and Hinata had no idea why he still hadn't frozen to death.

To be honest that would be preferable.

His eyes slowly raised up, and they were so dry he could feel them move in their sockets. The dull morning light seeped through the windows of the gecko-van, casting an almost-heavenly light on his companions at the other end of the boot. The four of them were quietly entangled in each other, four pieces of the same miserable jigsaw puzzle fitting together so well. It was as if they were made to just hold each other.

Hinata wanted nothing more than to crawl back to them and have them hold him too, but he ultimately turned his eyes back down to the floor and let his heart ache more. He hadn't slept in the cuddle-pile since the incident; he'd been too ashamed to look his them in the face, let alone let himself touch them.

Half of himself tried to rationalise the situation; he'd made the right choice, it was self-defence, he'd done it to protect two of his dearest friends, to save them. If he hadn't, Kageyama and Yachi would've been, at best, so beaten up they'd need to be hospitalised or, at worst, killed. It was justified... wasn't it?

Yet the other half reminded him that it didn't matter what kind of excuses he'd make; the fact was that he had brutally killed four people in a grizzly, bloody manner that would only be exhibited by psychopaths in slasher-flick movies.

And that side was correct. He was a murderer. A sick, twisted murderer who brutalised people with his own bare hands.

The guilt ate him alive, and was only made worse with the realisation that it wasn't the fact that he'd taken four lives that freaked Hinata out the most.

It was the murder-instinct.

Hinata had seen the wrong-faced people drift about the Institution like liquid shadows, their eyes almost falling back into their skulls. Like mannequins come to life.

Yachi had once told him about Uncanny Valley; something that looked human but you could feel that it definitely wasn't. Did it apply to living creatures or just robots? Or something that used to be human? Did it apply to him now?

Hinata screwered his eyes shut.

He was now one of them. One of the wrong-faced people.

Is that what it felt like? The constant buzz and the knowledge that you were not alone inside your own body. The inability to think for yourself, the inability to do anything but obey.

Hinata had known something was wrong- his body had known something was wrong. And now that he knew what was wrong, and where it was wrong, his body redoubled its efforts to send him distress signals and warnings that it didn't like hosting two minds at once. It wanted the intrusive fake-consciousness gone much, much more than any of the physical enhancements the Institution had given him.

At least he had the assurance that his body was on his side.

It was just... how does he get rid of something inside his head? How did it get in there in the first place!? Why couldn't Hinata even remember how it got there? He wanted it gone just as bad as his body did, if not, even more.

It had been horrifyingly easy for him to fall under its influence, how quickly he allowed himself to be stripped of his own will. He'd played right into its hands just because he wanted to help.

He'd already tried to rationalise the murder-instinct's purpose;  _it can be useful, I could use it to protect everyone. I could use it to be fearless. I could use it to be strong._  


_But what if I never stop?_  


But what if it never let him go? Would he lose himself completely? Would he forget everything if the buzzing never stopped? Would he be gone completely? Would he forget his friends? What if he attacked them and hurt them?

The possibility  _terrified_ Hinata.

There was shuffling, then blurred speech. Hinata could only stare blankly at the floor. He so wanted to greet his friends with a cheerful 'good morning!' just like he used to do back at the summer training camp, he wanted to hug them and beg them to never leave him.

He didn't have a right to do that. He was something they hated now- Hinata knew perfectly well what Tsukishima was most afraid of. Hinata would rather die than cause him pain every day just by looking at him.

He was causing them all pain. He was a part of the Institution and he was a walking reminder of everything that had happened.

A warm body lay behind him; it was taller than he was and yet their curves fitted together so well. A knee hooked over his legs, one metal arm snaked under him and came to rest on his lower stomach, the other reached over and threaded its fingers with his. Tsukishima hummed quietly as he settled his head against Hinata's, and mumbled a quiet; "please wake up."

Hinata couldn't bring himself to. Tsukishima's body was a blanket soft like cream which burned his skin like acid. He seriously debated telling him to leave him alone, but decided against it, it would only hurt Tsukishima more.

Why was he here? Shouldn't he be running for the hills?

Hinata himself could hardly move from the fear.

Time began to pass in a blur. He hardly registered whatever happened. He only moved in the night when the thoughts got too much and he needed to put a safe distance between himself and the rest. The cold wouldn't let him sleep, but it did give him more time for thought.

There had to be a way to get whatever it was that was inside his head outside his head. Maybe he could just... forget about it and it would go away? Gosh how he wanted to forget about it; just go back home and forget that everything had happened.

If he could've forgotten he'd’ve done it by now.

It was still so cold.

* * *

The coldness followed him into the dream world.

In that dream, he was walking. Alone. It was dark, but the snow stood out as it gently fell from the sky, giving off their own light, like miniature moons. Hoar frost lined his eyes, nostrils and mouth, and rime was growing on his black metal limbs, and heat was beginning to rush to his nose and his cheeks. He wasn't wearing the stolen clothes anymore, just that dinky blue hospital robe loosely tied down his back.

His first instinct was to look around for Yachi, if this was his brain feeding him another memory then where was she? They had went out into the cold together.

Alas, Yachi was nowhere to be seen. Nothing was; not his five friends, not Norilsk, not the Institution. Just an empty forest road and the snow that fell from the cloudless sky. And Hinata was lucid enough to register that there was no sound here. Only silence.

He puffed out a soft breath, which wafted white in the breezeless air. The cold was beginning to seriously grow on him, literally and figuratively. He used to think he was just plain, blazing heat, but that took energy. Why not stay here, where nothing could hurt him and everything would freeze over anyway?

A soft light caught his attention, and Hinata wearily lifted his head.

Since when was he in a neighbourhood? Why was he standing in front of someone's house?

Hinata stared the house down. It looked identical to every single one on this street, pale pastel, wooden sliding doors, snow-covered roof. The only difference was that this one's lights were on, smoke was slowly billowing out of the chimney, and a red bike was perched up against one wall.

Wait.

_ This was his house . _

Back in Japan. His house, his home, the building he'd lived in all his life, home,  _home_ !

Effortlessly scaling the fence he ran across the garden, leaving three-taloned footprints in his wake. He hopped up the steps, reaching for the doorknob... and stopped.

It was his house, but it was rude to come in uninvited; especially when he had been gone for so long. Hinata huffed a little laugh to himself. He'd been gone for almost a year, and he was concerned with manners?

Nevertheless he curled his talons into a fist and politely tapped the door. It echoed against the silence, and the world continued being just that; silent.

Huh? Hinata leaned to check the window. No, someone was  _definitely_ home, the lights were on! He knocked on the door again, but got no answer.

"Mum, mum it's me!" he called out, quiet at first but louder the second time. Yet still the door remained closed, and the lights remained on.

So Hinata reached out and pushed the door open. The vestibule was just how he'd remembered it, with the coat-hooks and pile of shoes and the weird art installation auntie had made for mum's birthday four years ago. It was all still the same, and it didn't fail in putting a gentle smile on Hinata's face.

" _ Tadaima _ !" he called out happily, maybe even shedding a few tears. Drat, it was getting him emotional! But he was  _home_ !

Nobody answered.

" _Tadaima_!" Hinata called again, louder this time, and still all he got was silence.

Maybe they were all asleep? It did appear to be late after all... but why were the lights on? Hinata bit his lip and tried to explain it away again; they'd probably just forgotten when they fell asleep. He should really turn it all off if that was the case; the electricity bill would go through the roof!

So Hinata stepped into the house, and what he found was not his house.

What instead he found beyond that familiar vestibule was the long corridor of a dark hospital, double doors blocking off the front, and somehow the behind. A small waiting area was situated on left side of the corridor like a pool in the middle of a river. The shadows cast over the rows upon rows of empty seats, the only light coming from a single, small light beyond one of the double doors. It was empty, nothing moved. No staff members, no visitors, no people.

A bitter taste made itself known in Hinata's mouth, his excitement paling into unsettlement. He'd been in this hospital before; this was the one that saved the small boy from hypothermia all those years ago- his kohai's friend, back from Yukigaoka. This was also the hospital that did his x-ray when he broke his arm when he was nine. But he remembered it to be brighter, more friendly, with plenty of people standing idly or rushing about. He remembered this place to be well lit, white but not quite.

He did not get to mull over anything of anything else, he spotted someone in the waiting area. They stood still, looking down at a 'maze' of plastic tubes to push beads along- the one every hospital waiting room had at least one of. The person didn't touch it however, only looked.

Her ginger hair Hinata could recognise anywhere.

Hinata stepped into the waiting room, letting out his careful breath bit by bit. This was definitely Natsu. It was Natsu!  _His dear Natsu_. His dear little sister.

"Natsu!" He called softly to her, and the little girl raised her head and their eyes met. Hinata was going to fall to his knees and hug her close, he was going to cry until he couldn't no more because Natsu was here and-

He stopped.

Because Natsu didn't look surprised or even glad to see him. Instead her eyes were full of cold hatred.

"You are not my Ni-chan," his sister spat darkly at him, and Hinata stumbled back as if she had just punched him in the throat. " _My_ Ni-chan is not a murderer."

The moment those words left her mouth, she turned into a dark, thick liquid which fell and splattered into a pool at his feet. It spilled over the floor, reaching all four corners of the suddenly tiny room, and started to climb.

Hinata couldn't even blink before the level had already clung to his waist. His slowed body snapped into action and he began to scramble for anything,  _anything_ to grasp onto and pull himself out of the rising black water, but his claws were worthless and scrambling at the walls uselessly and the liquid level rose up past his chest and up to his neck at breakneck speed. Hinata screamed for help when the blood sloshed over his chin, and when his his cry went unanswered he tilted his head up for the last few remaining millimetres of air before he was swallowed by darkness.

Hinata held his breath for as long he could- something was dragging him down and the pressure didn't stop. His mouth and nose were sealed, and the burning inside him quickly grew to torture. His lungs were going to burst!

He was about to give in and take in a breath when the black water let him go and tossed him onto a floor. He hacked and and coughed for desperate oxygen, before he realised he was not out of breath at all.

This was somewhere else again. And he knew this floor. The wooden floorboards crisscrossed with court lines and the shadow of the net hanging above him. He pressed his head down and tried to steady his panicked heartbeat.

It was safe now. He knew this floor. It was home and the memories it held were still gold spun between his neurones. Nothing was going to happen now. Everything was alright.

"You!"

Hinata whipped himself up to a sitting position, only to stop breathing once again.

The volleyball gym was destroyed completely. The walls crumbling and no taller than Hinata was himself, aside from the doorway, which stood, doorless, but still stood nonetheless. The volleyball court floor was all scratched up, as if something had taken its massive metal talon to it and let out all rage out against it. The net was frayed and hanging only by thin threads like a spider's web. The roof was gone, the distant shattered buildings and telephone towers black shadows against the dark, dark crimson sky.

And Coach Ukai was standing at the doorway.

"Sensei-"

But his coach did not answer. His footsteps stormed against the partially-snowed court, leaving no footprints. Hinata did not even get up, his coach's trembling metal hands fisted into his number 10 jersey and pulled him forwards.

"What have you done?" Ukai-sensei wailed at him. His eyes were wide and bloodshot and rolling around wildly in his emaciated skull.

At first his words didn't occur to Hinata, he'd been too preoccupied taking in his sensei's horrible condition. Who had done this to him!? How dare they!

Ukai-sensei shook him again, grabbing Hinata's skewed attention once more. "What have you done?" he snarled, in a tone identical to Natsu's. " _What have you done!?_ "

Hinata rapidly shook his head, hoping his frantic and distressed breaths could make Ukai-sensei release his iron grip and explain what was happening.

Why was the sky so red?

"Answer me!" his coach snapped, voice growing more and more insane with every syllable.

"I-I don't-"

"What have you done with Hinata?"

Hinata's stomach jumped to his throat.

"I-I'm Hina-"

"You are not Hinata, you parasitic demon!" Ukai-sensei snarled, bringing their faces a hair-length apart. "Hinata is not a murderer."

The ginger-haired boy did the only thing he could think of- he twisted himself free from his coach's grip and ran for the door. As he reached the doorway and threw himself over the threshold, the scene changed again.

A completely grey room. Silver cabinets lined both walls, some opened, some closed; some empty, others holding large objects wrapped in white sheets. A fluorescent light buzzed loudly above him on the ceiling, like tv static, flickering unrhythmically like arrhythmia. A stretcher was placed in the middle of the windowless, doorless room, and atop it lay a body.

It was a woman, her head tilted back with her expression frozen in pure fear. Her skin was paling, already decomposing, yet the deep wound that tore her throat apart was dark and black and wet.

Hinata went completely rigid. Nothing- not the arcade murders, not the murder-instinct in his head, not even the Institution itself could ever strike so much horror into him as the sight before him did.

"Mum?"

* * *

That was Hinata's first night terror, and it came to him every night after that. It was the same course of events; coming home, Natsu in the hospital, drowning, the destroyed Karsuno gym with the red sky, his mother dead in the morgue.

The only difference was that every time, someone else would yell at him. At first it was Ukai-sensei, then Bokuto-san, then Tanaka-senpai... so far. Every time, however, they'd be in that near-dead desperate state, with metal limbs of their own.

Hinata had tried to tell himself it was just a nightmare, it wasn't real. They were still in Russia far away from home, far away from anything that might happen.

He could only lay there in the freezing cold and wish that the nightmare wasn't a prophecy. If he came back, knocked on his house door just like he was longing to do, would his murder-instinct recognise his mother as a foreign threat? Or would it stay dormant as it did with his four companions?

Hinata did not want to find out.

He did not even want to think about it.

He'd not raise his claws to his mother. He'd not raise his claws to anyone. Never, never, never, never, never.

There had to be a way to get that demon out of his head. There just had to be- Hinata refused to bring it back home with him. It may lay asleep now, but what if it awoke again? What if he listened to it again? What if he never noticed and he'd be like that forever? What if he stopped being 'himself'?

_My Ni-chan is not a murderer._  


_You are not Hinata._

It wouldn't only be his companions that were in danger, but his friends, his teammates, his sister, his mother, everyone he came into contact with. Even if he managed to behave normally, one wrong thing could set it off- Hinata didn't know what even triggered it but those were waters he did not want to test.

He was a walking timebomb and he hated himself.

And things were supposed to be getting better. How was Hinata supposed to return to society if his sole purpose was to kill? How was he going to play on a court? How was he to accompany his friends on all the wonderful things they were going to do when they got back? How was he supposed to  _live_?

Wait...

Maybe if he couldn't get rid of the murder-instinct specifically, he could get rid of the whole thing...?

How easy would it be to turn those horrific claws against himself? How long would it take? How much would it hurt?

That was not a thought Hinata liked rolling around in his head, not at all, but ever since it came to him after the dream with Bokuto-san in it, he could barely think about anything else. It was the most simple, most easy, most effective way out, after all.

Tanaka-san had once said to him that there were no easy ways out; and if there was, it was usually the wrong way.

But... it was a way out.

And Hinata could barely take it anymore.

"-nata."

Hinata blinked out the crust out of his eyes before looking up at Kageyama. God, he really needed a shower- he was absolutely filthy! Not to mention the smell, he smelled like the alleyways in Norilsk! Like pee and trash bins. And maybe add to that the stench of sweat and blood and dust and grime.

Hinata was used to it; they all smelled like that. He himself felt incredibly dirty. When was the last time he'd showered?

"Hinata?" Kageyama asked once more, and Hinata only gave a small nod in response, he really didn't feel like talking anymore. He could tell Kageyama was trying to keep his voice level, but he wasn't as good at keeping his cool anymore. The setter sat down beside him and rest his forearms on his shoulders.

It was always these moments where Hinata was reminded of their size difference. Kageyama was bigger than him in every category, and it used to be something Hinata would get annoyed about, something that he'd get competitive over. Now he just let Kageyama envelop him and he was just a little bit more comfortable.

"Hinata," Kageyama said again, and he crooked his head to look him better in the eyes. "You haven't talked for four days now. You-" he pulled Hinata onto his lap, and Hinata hung his head, just eye-level with the huge wires that ran up his neck. "You have that look in your eyes."

_What look?_ Hinata dully wondered, but didn't speak. Maybe if he didn't speak, he'd distance himself enough so that nobody would miss him?

"I know that look," Kageyama repeated himself again, and a gentle, twitching hand came under his chin and tilted his head up to face him. "You have the same look in your eyes my uncle had before he hung himself."

Hinata flinched so hard he cracked multiple joints.

"I-"

"You better not be thinking of doing anything stupid," Kageyama barked forcelessly at him, and gave an expression Hinata had never seen before on his usually gloomy, stoic face. "I'll-I'll never forgive you."

"I don't deserve your forgiveness," Hinata replied quietly, his unused voice hoarse and scratchy. "After everything I've done-"

"You didn't require my forgiveness for that, and even if you did, you'd have it in the blink of an eye," Kageyama said and took a deep breath. "If you-you're worried about the murder-instinct, you needn't be; I'll just slap it out of you. I can't slap life back into you if you decide to take it away."

"What if it's not that easy?" Hinata shook his head, but Kageyama's fingers were still holding on. They were warm against his skin, and Hinata couldn't stop himself from leaning into them. "What if you can't just 'slap it out of me'? What if I hurt you-"

"You won't hurt me," Kageyama assured him.

"Maybe you and the others can handle me, but my family coul-couldn't-couldn't-" Hinata couldn't finish that, his whole body began to shake as the image of the silver morgue came leaking.

There was a moment of silence, before Kageyama carefully framed his face with ticking hands. "...Is that what your night terrors have been about?"

Hinata whined and nodded his head. He tried to blink away the memories, and the tears came instead.

"You won't lay a finger on them," whispered the raven-hair. "You are still the Hinata I know; and that annoying little dumbass is the least violent person to ever walk this earth. No fucking Institution-made coward sitting in your head could make you turn against people you really care about; especially not your family."

Hinata wished he could be of a similar faith.

"I'll find a way," Kageyama stubbornly continued, bringing their faces close.. "Just please... I don't want to lose you." He visibly swallowed before daring to rest his forehead against Hinata's. "Hinata I... What do I need to say to convince you to stay?"

Hinata could feel his body wring itself dry at those words. His heart was beginning to beat in his ears. Did he even want to stay? It would be easier to just end it here, and not have to worry about hurting his loved ones. But... he'd never see his family again. He'd never go home. Maybe that would be for the best.

"Hinata." He could feel Kageyama's breath on his nose. "I-I don't know what I'd do with myself without you. I wouldn't have become half of the things I did without you. You came into my life when I was losing everything, I  can't lose you too."

Whatever it was that Hinata was feeling, he didn't want to feel it anymore.

"It wouldn't matter to me if you did turn out to be a monster," Kageyama continued, more forcefully this time. "You could turn the whole world against you for all I care; I'll stand by your side until the day I die. And if you do die, I'm coming with you."

Hinata's heart stopped. "Kageyama no-"

"How exactly are you going to stop me?" Kageyama gave him a half-hearted smile, and combed back his hair. "Wherever you go, I'm following you."

Hinata frowned back at him, more water rolling down his cheeks and catching on his chin. "Kageyama, you're not allowed to die."

"And you are?"

"Kageyama I... I don't know. I keep.. I'm scared I'll hurt you, or the others, or anyone I care about- I'd never forgive myself."

"You're going to hurt everyone a lot more if you leave."

As if to hammer his point home, Kageyama tilted his head up, hesitated for only a few moments before he gently but firmly placed his lips upon Hinata's forehead.

They were so warm and so, so soft, and Hinata's eyes fell shut.

Why did everything hurt so much more now?

Kageyama's hands kept combing through his hair, and when he pulled back a low heat was left behind.

Slowly Hinata raised his terrible metal hands and slid them carefully against Kageyama's bottom jaw. The bruise was dark black now. He looked so saddened.

"I'll keep you sane," Kageyama promised solemnly. "We all will. Just... Don't leave me."

It was for him Hinata had sacrificed his humanity. He'd do so again in a heartbeat.

"I'm not going to leave, you dummy."

_ I hope I just made the right choice. _

Kageyama let out a desperate exhale and lunged forward to press Hinata tightly up against his chest, his arms almost constricting but safe. "If you ever think about leaving again, I'll throttle you," he threatened.

"I'll keep that in mind," Hinata assured him, and hugged him just as tight. "Y'know, I like you when you're soft. Softyama."

"Quit giving me dumb nicknames, will you dumbass?" He could hear the sad happiness in Kageyama's voice nonetheless, and Hinata drank it all up.

The doors to the back of the van opened, and Yamaguchi's silhouette appeared, blocking out the outside light like a solar eclipse. He was understanding, just like always, as he wordlessly handed them a flat, already open plastic packet and a pink-coloured tube.

"What are those?" Kageyama asked, reluctantly pulling a hand away from Hinata to take the things from Yamaguchi.

"Toothbrushes 'n toothpaste," Yamaguchi replied simply. "'S a restroom round the back-" he pointed back to the petrol station. His hands, like Tsukishima's and unlike Hinata's or Yachi's, didn't sport claws or talons; they were blunt-ended just like normal fingers were. "Y'should try clean up at least a little. Tsukki's there, so y'should be okay."

They muttered a quiet 'yes sir' out of habit, before slipping out of the van. Kageyama fiddled with the packet, where three toothbrushes had already been taken out. He handed the red one to Hinata and kept the blue one for himself. The bathrooms, thankfully, weren't that difficult to find, and just like Yamaguchi had said, Tsukishima was there, bent over the sink with a purple stick in his mouth. He gave them a reassuring glance before going back to brushing and the two took their place next to him. Hinata held out his own toothbrush, asking for toothpaste but Kageyama was preoccupied squinting at the tube.

"What?"

"Why is this bubblegum flavoured?"

Tsukishima spat into the sink. "Because I don't like mint-flavoured toothpaste, it's far too strong."

Maybe mint would've been better; bubblegum really didn't go well with the metallic taste of blood and silvery teeth. Speaking of- they weren't sharp anymore. Hinata was sure that they had somehow sharpened and curved like fishhooks when the murder-instinct took over.

He could still remember sinking his teeth into flesh, so far down they scraped against bone.

His cheeks hurt where the scabs were irritated as his jaw moved.

Hinata looked down at his palm. Were these talons bigger under the influence? They probably were.

Back home he'd always look at his hands in admiration after a successful spike, how his skin would sting red. It always nailed in the feeling of accomplishment and pride, and assured him that he wasn't useless, he was doing good and was doing better and better with each coming day.

Now, every time Hinata looked at these blood-stained, black metal hands, he felt no admiration or rush of adrenaline or happiness, only fear and disgust.

He ran the sink, and stuck both hands under the stream. The red filled the white porcelain bowl and pooled around the drain before disappearing down into the endless black.

* * *

The moment they were back in the van, Hinata refused to leave Kageyama's arms. He'd slept by himself for only four nights, and it had nearly frozen him to the core. But the return of warmth welcomed him back like an old friend, and Hinata wasn't sure why he had left it at all.

Occasionally Kageyama would run his hand through his hair, scratching delicately at his scalp, and Hinata would lean into it like it was the most desirable thing in the world.

Yeah... he'd made the right choice.

He'd stopped talking again, because he had decided he still needed time to come to terms with everything. Maybe he wouldn't make peace with it today, or tomorrow, or even this year, but he hoped that eventually he would. He made the decision to stay, so he'd do his absolute best to make that decision the correct one.

He could rely on Kageyama to keep him in line when he couldn't himself.

The loud conversation happening up front was unheard; whatever Yamaguchi, Yachi and Tsukishima were arguing about would resolve itself soon enough, he was sure. They were all smart; he could trust them to carry on while he sorted himself out.

Kageyama tucked in ginger tufts behind his ear, also content to smother himself in Hinata's hair, and Hinata was beyond grateful.

_You're important to me too, y'know?_ He wanted to say, but decided to save it for later. He'd tell Kageyama everything, soon. He'd apologise again, for putting him through everything that had happened, both today and at that arcade. That boy was not told enough times how wonderful he was.

Hinata could feel sleep starting to take him, though he held out for a couple of more precious minutes.

Though the murder-instinct still terrified Hinata to death, he'd vowed to himself that he'd only listen to it when the objective was to  _protect_ .

He'd be the best defence. He'd keep everybody safe from whatever they'd encounter.

As Hinata repeated that silent promise in his head over and over and over again, sleep finally took him by the hand and let him rest his weary head.


	10. YAMAGUCHI - LET THE SLEEPING DOGS LIE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Already ten chapters? Man, I’m on a roll. :)  
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! Thanks guys!

Screaming awoke Yamaguchi in the middle of the night. He lifted his head from Tsukki's hip only to be backhanded over the head with a metal palm. He yelped and rubbed over the area, but the pain was soon forgotten when he noticed Hinata scurrying away from them to curl up into a small ball in the corner.

"Hinata?" Yamaguchi mumbled, still half-asleep as he pulled himself from the vice-like grip of his slowly-waking companions to crawl over to him. "You had that nightmare again?" 

Hinata didn't reply at first, but as Yamaguchi encouraged him into a hug, he whimpered his confirmation. He was shaking really bad, his breaths were bordering on hyperventilation, and Yamaguchi could only hold him.

Kageyama had told them what Hinata had been thinking of doing, and Yamaguchi would be lying if he said he hadn't gone into catatonic shock himself. Just the thought... J-Just the thought... If they lost Hinata, not even to the stupid Institution monster but to himself- if they lost Hinata at all... Yamaguchi wasn't sure what he would do with himself.

He could feel the grief already rising like bile from his alternative stomach, which itself gave a howl of nausea in protest to the mere possibility.

His metal hand brushed back Hinata's messy hair as the small boy clung to him like his life depended on it.

"Is everything alright?" Kageyama murmured from the cuddlepile, followed by the similarly confused groans from Yachi and Tsukki.

Yamaguchi however decided to ignore them, and brushed away the still-coming, frantic tears from Hinata's cheeks. "Shh, it's okay, I'm here. 'S just a nightmare."

"It was Kenma-san this time," said Hinata in a tiny voice, and held onto him tighter. "Their voices are so real."

"Shhh, calm down," Yamaguchi calmed him again, rubbing slowly against his arms. 

Yamaguchi was thankful that nightmares didn't come to him much; though occasionally he'd wake up after being thoroughly convinced he was trapped in the Institution again, but nothing to the extent of Hinata's, or Tsukki's, night terrors. Yamaguchi could only try to calm them down whenever they happened.

Kageyama came over in an instant, mumbling Hinata's name over and over as he was accepted into their three-way hug, and through wordless understanding Yamaguchi let up to pass Hinata onto the setter's lap.

He made to pull away, but a clawed hand gripped onto his jacket and he met wide amber eyes. The pale cyan glow of his own prosthetic caused shadows to dance across his face but Hinata held his gaze.

"Stay, please?"

So Yamaguchi stayed, and sandwiched Hinata between them. There was more shuffling, and Yachi crawled over to them to take Hinata's face into her hands, and started to run her fingers against his cheeks. There was more rustling. "Make room for me," Tsukki requested, and joined them in the corner covering them like a huge duvet.

Hinata had started to cry quietly, and the four of them let him sniffle to them, but never stopped brushing his hair and assuring him that everyone was here and everything would be okay.

Eventually they managed to calm Hinata enough to lull him back to sleep, and Yamaguchi snuggled close to him, tracing patterns into his upper arm.

He remembered how Hinata had assured him that he would be okay, how he'd nuzzled into his palm, how he'd smiled like summer itself and how his eyes blazed with life.

Yamaguchi was beyond scared, so he shuffled even closer to him so he could comfortably lay his head in the crook of his neck. He lay awake listening to his heartbeat until he followed Hinata's example and passed out again.

* * *

Yamaguchi was worried.

That was the closest word that could describe the state he had been in since they fled the Institution. Everything was falling apart, and no matter what Yamaguchi tried to do to fix it, it just seemed to fall apart faster. Hinata was still hardly talking, despite the confrontation with Kageyama, and although the raven-hair was doing much better, he was very irritable and sleep-deprived and constantly afraid. Never had Yamaguchi seen him with such large, panicked eyes. Yachi began sleeping even more now; sometimes she would sleep for twenty hours at a time.

Tsukki’s health was also severely deteriorating; he'd tried to confront him about it- yesterday in fact. But Tsukki had gotten defensive about it, saying something about being to blame for all of this and needing to carry them until they could pick themselves back up. Which, pardon Yamaguchi's language, he thought was utter bullshit.

He knew his best friend- Tsukki was not the type to push himself, that was more of a 'Hinata' thing. Even when begged for extra practise, Tsukki seldom agreed. Now it was like a switch had been flipped; not only was it severely out of character, but it was actually hurting him.

The night terrors had gotten worse- both Hinata and Tsukki could hardly get through the night without screaming. On particularly bad nights both of them would have multiple episodes.

What was he supposed to do?

They needed to somehow pick themselves back up, that's what they should do. The rational part of Yamaguchi knew that they couldn't afford to fall apart more than they already have, even after such a thing. They still needed to keep it together in order to make it home relatively okay- to make it home at all.

The other part argued back that they couldn't possibly pick themselves back up; if this wasn't 'completely fallen apart' then he didn't know what was. It was actually a miracle that they had lasted this far without breaking down, but Yamaguchi guessed that they had been high on adrenaline all this time and the raging emotions of the escape and journey home had suppressed the memories. And now that they had crashed and stopped running, they came leaking. It had only been two weeks since they'd ran from the Institution, and already things had started to go terribly wrong.

God. It had only been two weeks. Yamaguchi had been convinced that they'd had their freedom for much longer than that- a month at least. Fuck- his perception of time had become so squewed.

He digressed- the point was, they were only beginning to scatter, and it had only been two weeks. Yamaguchi just hoped they'd keep it together for as long as they needed to get home.

They really had to stop acting on impulse; it was really going to get them killed, even if it had gotten them this far. Stowing away on that bread-truck was possibly the only good move they had made since setting the Institution on fire. Everything else was only getting them back to square one.

Yamaguchi wished that all of this would just stop. That they'd get home and finally relax and never have to recall this ever again.

The day before they left Miyagi all that was on Yamaguchi's mind were the Nationals, New Year's Eve and what he would eat for dinner that evening. Back then the world made sense- he went to bed in the safety of his own room, woke up to the love of his parents, went to school like a normal boy. He had thought his anxiety was bad back then; he did not anticipate becoming this scared thing that he was now. He did not even imagine the nightmares he would come to experience.

"This is insane," he murmured under his breath, and pulled the nozzle of the petrol pump from the van and returned it to its proper place. Gecko didn't answer, and didn't complain when Yamaguchi ran his hand against her white-painted metal before closing her petrol cap. "What am I supposed to do, Gecko-sama?"

Yachi-san had started talking to the van first, referring to her as 'Gecko' this and 'Gecko' that when interacting with her, and her habit caught on very quickly. Something about talking to that van as if she were an old friend was comforting, and maybe it was sadder than talking to an animal sidekick; but Gecko was a Norilsk-ian refugee just like them. She was the only one who still was fully-functional and was currently getting them across the country, so respect of the highest level was due.

Yamaguchi thought it was kinda nice that they had found a friend in what essentially had become a cruel world. Whoever had abandoned her did them the biggest favour; Yamaguchi had no idea what they would've done if Gecko hadn't been there to get them out of that city.

It had been the best course of action, but of course things weren't perfect. Gecko wasn't a camper van; just a standard white van a plumbing or window-cleaning company might use, and hence was not insulated. And the nights out in the countryside were hellishly cold; the city (with its constant working factories and rush of traffic) had been much warmer. Though Yamaguchi had recently discovered that no matter how cold they seemed to get, their bodies could withstand it.

Gecko wasn't insulated, but maybe they were? At this point he wouldn't be surprised if the Institution had injected them with some sort of insulation under their skin. It would explain why Hinata and Yachi had survived deadly hypothermia, back in that nameless town with the broken church. Yamaguchi had a few vivid memories of laying on a metal operating table, heavily sedated yet fully lucid, with multiple needles burrowing into his skin at multiple points, the nasty feeling of something being pumped into him unable to be stopped. (He had to shake off the thoughts the moment they came to him, lest he work himself up into another panic attack.)

Yamaguchi never wanted to go back to the Institution or Norilsk. He was sure Norilsk could be a nice place if you weren't homeless, but Yamaguchi would be more than fine if he never walked in that city ever again.

He looked up and out into the distance. The petrol station, and the small town, was standing atop a small hill, and gave him a nice line of sight over the field of white and the forests that always seemed on the horizon. Kinda like the answers he needed; just in the line of sight but never close enough.

He'd forgotten how clean the countryside air was. It was different from the air back home, Japane's countryside air smelled like clouds and dying, summer grass, Russia's was crisp and cold and tasted of winter and silence. Yamaguchi had so long breathed the stale, tasteless and sterile air of the Institution. He'd been breathing the polluted air that hung about Norilsk like poisonous gases, with its foul-smelling alleyways and soot-smelling snow.

Breathing out here was like drinking the tears of angels.

Yamaguchi sighed in defeat and grimaced. For all that he praised Russia's countryside air, their petrol stations also smelled very strongly of gasoline. He used to like that smell, even though his parents always complained about it; he now knew where they were coming from.

This was only the second petrol station they'd stopped at so far, and Yamaguchi were already sick of them. The very weird looks they were getting from truckers, station staff and other drivers were really starting to worry him, and Yamaguchi tried to assure himself that it was because they looked like they'd been through hell and back (literally and figuratively), and not because they could somehow see the strange metal enhancements which would make any normal person at least concerned.

But of course that had its own issues; Yamaguchi was sure they were putting a large target on their backs. If the Institution were to ask around for five mechanically-advanced asian kids everyone that had even a glance at them could point the finger. How many people was that now? Like; at least half of Norilsk and everyone in the last two petrol stations.

How the Institution hadn't caught up to them already was a mystery. They were the furthest thing from elusive (especially not with the quadruple-murder stunt under their belts), so whatever they were doing that was keeping them hidden and away from the Institution, Yamaguchi hoped and prayed with all his heart that they would keep doing it and it would keep working.

...The metal image of that abandoned arcade still weighed heavily on Yamaguchi's insides every time he thought about it. He'd bite his tongue or hit his thigh to get his mind off of it but it never really worked. The guilt of not being there at the moment where his friends needed him most; it haunted him.

Yamaguchi had already promised himself that a repeat scenario wouldn't happen; if anything threatened them again he'd be there and he'd put this disgusting strength to good use.

He'd never allow Hinata to fall victim to the murder-instinct ever again.

The shock that went through both his arms tossed him out of his thoughts, and reminded him that this nightmare was not over yet. He gasped and steadied himself against the Gecko, pressing his forehead to her cold metal pelt. He closed off his mouth to breathe deeply through his nose as the pins and needles transitioned to pain. It wasn't enough to reduce him to a sobbing mess like an attack did, but it did leave him shaking and groaning voicelessly.

It'd be over soon, it only lasted a couple of minutes. He could hold out.

"Yamaguchi-kun, do you know- oh." Yachi-san came out from behind Gecko, and stopped in her tracks, her expression falling the moment she saw him. "Are you okay?"

Yamaguchi just nodded. Another high gripped him at that moment and he let a whine past his lips.

"Is it the phantom pains again?"

He nodded his head again, and lowly admitted; "Hurts."

Yachi nuzzled his torso and settled herself against him. "I know," she assured him quietly. "It'll be over soon."

In reply Yamaguchi craned his neck to fit her head under his chin. She was the perfect size for him to do so, and a few minutes later, Yamaguchi began to calm down.

"Y'wanted to ask me something?"

"I'll ask you it in a minute, are you alright now?"

"'s just the leftover stinging now, should wear off in 'moment or two."

Yachi took his metal hands in hers, turning them over between her talons. These prosthetics were far too complicated than they needed to be; and his nerves encased in elastic like electric cables did not help with the pains.

"I miss your true hands," Yachi mentioned, and Yamaguchi could only stare at their interlocked hands.

Guess his crush on Yachi from that other life was still here, huh?

"You know," the girl said quietly. "I had looked forward to taping your fingers up every time you'd practise or have a match. It's a shame I'll never be able to do that now."

Yamaguchi was sure she'd give him heart palpitations one of these days. He looked down at her in distant longing, and let himself indulge in the feel of her claws between his fingers. "Yeah," he mumbled his agreement. "Me too."

Red erupted on Yachi-san's face, which in turn caused Yamaguchi to begin to panic.

"Guuuh I'm so sorry!" he apologised profusely. "I made it so awkward!"

"N-No, it's okay, its my fault, I shouldn't've said that!" Yachi shook her head, taking her hands away awkwardly, before she promptly look at her feet.

"Y-Y'wanted to ask-ask-ask-" his fake voice decided that was the moment to also act up, and he had to cough to get the stupid voicebox to stop glitching.

Everything was piling on again. There were so many things to think about. What should he think about?

When he slept he wasn't getting any rest.

Yachi, forgetting about her embarrassment already, came to his support again. "I was going to ask about that." She pointed out into the landscape, and when Yamaguchi looked again, he noticed stormclouds gathering in the distant horizon, and the wind against his face confirmed that it was coming their way. "I don't think Tsukishima-kun should be driving through that."

"He shouldn't be driving at all," Yamaguchi told her honestly. "He should be trying to get to sleep, not be in front of a wheel on an icy road." He shook his head. "Being fair, 've never seen him like this. 'S the opposite of what I know Tsukki to be.

But if Tsukki got defensive again, that could worsen everything-

"I'll back you up," Yachi-san offered. "It's the very least I could do." She placed a gentle hand on his forearm, and gave him a small smile.

A lot of the senseless noise quieted down into comfortable, assuring silence when Yachi smiled at him like that.

* * *

"Yamaguchi-"

"Tsukki," Yamaguchi sighed out seriously, pointing desperately to the rapidly-greying sky. "I know you're trying to get us home, and we've already told you, we appreciate it. There's a storm coming, and even if y'were driving for a hundred years y'could still get killed in that!"

His best friend looked highly uncomfortable not sitting behind the wheel, but he looked relatively the same when he  was . Yamaguchi could only look back at him with silent begging in his eyes.  _Goddammit, you stubborn mule, how am I supposed to help you if you don't let me?_  


"Yamaguchi-kun's right," Yachi backed him up just as she had promised, she was careful with her words. They set him off last time this topic came up, and couldn't risk that this time. "We're far away enough, we can afford to stay here for the time being."

"But-" His hand still reached to turn the keys, but Yamaguchi caught it with his own.

"Calm down," he told him firmly. "Y'need to get some sleep."

Tsukki whipped his head back, metal teeth glistening behind his lips. "I'd rather not," he snapped. "Can you two please stop ganging up on me? I'm my best to get us home!"

"Y'don't get to destroy and sacrifice y'rself!" Yamaguchi snapped back, and coughed out as his throat warned him not to get too loud. "If the price to go home is to lose y', I'd rather not go home at all."

Something flashed behind Tsukki's eyes then, and he was silent for a moment, before trying to reinstate his stance.

"It's not even noon yet," he protested, though through a subtle change in tone Yamaguchi knew that while his best friend still barked, he'd lost all his bite. So he nailed him with a tired glare until Tsukki relented with a final heavy exhale. And Yamaguchi met him with a similar sight; if only to let him know that he wasn't angry.

"It'll be okay," Yachi assured him gently. "Apropos, Tsukishima-kun," she proposed. "I was thinking... if you taught the rest of us how to drive, the weight wouldn't be only on your shoulders. N-Not today, but like... tomorrow."

Why hadn't Yamaguchi thought of that? Yachi really was brilliant.

"Are you sure?"

"It's a good idea," Yamaguchi assured him. "You need rest too, you lame idiot."

_He's not getting rest, not even when he sleeps. Nobody is._

Yamaguchi opened his arms for him, and Tsukki scrambled into the back and made a beeline for him. They settled together like lock and key with Tsukki on his lap and Yamaguchi could feel his scattered mind calm down a little.

"We'll make it home home, all of us," Yachi put in as she joined them, and when Tsukki turned his head to look at her, she raked her hand through his hair. "We'll be safer and more efficient if we take turns driving." And even though Tsukki still looked unsure, he lowered his head and wordlessly requested her to keep petting him.

Yamaguchi knew from experience the wondrous gentleness of her fingers. Yachi used to have such steady hands, and though her reattached nerves were less practical, they still held onto that precious gentleness. He almost bowed his own head, wanting to feel her too.

"I'd be up for something like that," Kageyama suddenly said from his position against the opposite wall.

Yamaguchi gestured to him. "Come lay with us, Kageyama," he requested, and the raven-hair did not think twice before carefully making his way towards them and settling down flush next to Yamaguchi, dragging a limp, half-catatonic Hinata behind him and caringly arranging him against his chest. The ginger's face was slack yet awake, back in that defensive state.

Yamaguchi reached out his hand towards Hinata's curls, and framed the edge of his face, and suddenly Hinata's eyes flicked up and he blinked awake. "Yamaguchi?"

"I'm here, I'm here," Yamaguchi assured him, holding his cheek in the palm of his hand. "It's okay. We're safe."

Kageyama gave a quiet growl in his throat and lay his head on his shoulder, wrapping one arm around Hinata and the other around Yamaguchi's waist.

"It's okay," Yachi backed him up again, and she and Tsukki snuggled closer. "It's okay, we're all here."

They all got comfortable together, so everyone could touch everyone, and the five of them sagged back against the thin metal wall. The wind was beginning to howl louder now, but Gecko held strong and steady against it, shielding them like a guardian angel. She couldn't provide them with heat, but that wasn't an issue- heat was something they kept and passed between themselves as they huddled.

Their bodies were warm, whatever skin he touched was smooth, and Yamaguchi could only surrender himself to their hold. This had been his only source of comfort for so long; it was still his only source of comfort.

Down in the Institution, any moment spent idly in the cell was spent curled up with the others. Back then he had the habit of pressing his face as far as it could go into anyone's chest just so he didn't have to look, and held them even when his still-fleshy fingers turned white.

Now, he still held onto them as tightly as his metal arms would allow him, closing his eyes before resting his forehead against Tsukki and Kageyama's, and the three of them supported each other like old trees against the gale, while Yachi and Hinata found shelter beneath their heads. Yamaguchi closed his eyes and just felt.

Didn't think. Just felt the slow rise and fall of their chests, their breaths tickling his lips and nose, their hands brushing at his back and arms and hair so he could calm his own heartbeat. His thumb slowly caressed Kageyama's hip, and he dully wished that his hands wouldn't feel so cold.

This was probably the only situation where Yamaguchi could breathe properly, it made him warm, it made him feel like this was a safe place, where nothing could hurt them, like the back of their clubroom or by the fireplace, instead of the middle of nowhere in a foreign land with an unseen predator on their tail.

The wind had picked up and had began shrieking against Gecko, whistling between her doorcracks like a ghoul, and the blizzard was throwing itself against the windows, but Yamaguchi couldn't care less.

"Tsukishima-kun?" Yachi murmured quietly after what felt like hours.

"Hmm?" Tsukki shifted and opened a single eye to look at her.

"Is driving difficult?"

Tsukki sucked in a breath through his teeth. "It's... harder than it looks," he admitted truthfully, but bumped his head against Yachi's in assurance. "It'll be fine, Gecko-san's really forgiving when it comes to driving."

Yamaguchi lifted his head and began snickering- Tsukki had initially been unhappy with the van's personification, and he recalled his grimace when Gecko became a reoccurring name.

"Shut up Yamaguchi," Tsukki sighed half-heartedly. "It's growing on me."

Yamaguchi gave him a grin, and Tsukki furrowed his eyebrows before glaring back at Yachi. "Besides, must you still call me 'Tsukishima'?"

That got them all to look up at him, and Tsukki automatically hid his face in Hinata's massive mop of hair. The little middle blocker looked up at him awkwardly with his big dead-doe eyes. "Eh?"

Tsukki stubbornly kept himself hidden, even going so far as to lock his arms around Hinata in a tight hold. Hinata accepted his new position without a second thought, sweetly wrapping his arms around his torso.

"It's just- you don't," Tsukki mumbled into Hinata's head. "You all don't have to call me 'Tsukishima' anymore, it's a bit too formal. Please, call me Kei."

Yamaguchi's heart lifted along with his eyebrows, and he couldn't help but give a wholehearted chuckle (when was the last time he'd laughed with genuine happiness?).

"Kei." The name rolled off of his tongue like warm honey, tasted just as sweet too. His tired mouth stretched into a smile, and even wider when Kageyama repeated the name, followed more hesitantly, yet confidently by Yachi and Hinata.

The blonde-haired boy lifted his head and had the audacity to look sheepish, which Yamaguchi found even more hilarious. He didn't care if the angle was awkward and whatnot, he wrapped an arm around his best friend's neck and plainly rejoiced when he felt Kei's arm wrap around his back too.

"If that's the case, you can all call me Tadashi."

Tadashi. That was his name. He'd almost forgotten it. His name wasn't 171, and while Yamaguchi was his family name; Tadashi was his given name, and it was  _his_ .

"Shoyo is fine as well," their middle blocker offered, and Tadashi reached out to brush his fingers against his cheeks. Shoyo reached into his touch, he looked beautiful. "Tadashi..."

Yeah. That was his name.

It set off a cascade where Kageyama and Yachi also gave everyone permission to call them Tobio and Hitoka respectively, and it left Tadashi wondering why they had gone calling each other by their last names for so long.

The outside light slowly darkened into night, and Tadashi made Tobio's chest into a pillow as the five of them tipped back onto the floor. With a gruff sigh Tobio let his hands rest on his lower back, and Tadashi snuggled closer. The setter slept best with a weight on top of him, and on top of Tobio happened to be one of Tadashi's favourite sleeping positions; so it was a win-win situation.

* * *

That night, however, was not as peaceful as Tadashi had set himself up to expect.

He was dreaming again. He was dreaming that he was back at the Institution; standing with a spine so straight it could be used as a spirit level. His metal feet were planted firmly on the ebony-wooden floor, so polished and so dark Tadashi was almost convinced he was standing upon black ice.

This room was nothing like the hidden walls of the Institution, with its grey liminal corridors and the scent of wrongness that wafted around them like poisonous gases... that vibe was present here too- albeit it was weaker up here than down where the nightmares were born.

The room was furnished with expensive-looking carved chairs, desks and shelves upon which stood trinkets which sparkled like jewellery fit for kings, paintings of unfamiliar places and people hung on the walls, fitted within frames of glittering gold. There were no windows- that was probably the only thing that it had in common with the laboratory.

The change in scenery already had Tadashi on high alert, his discomfort only amplified by the fact that the woman at the head of his procedures had stripped him of his hospital robe and left him standing there with absolutely nothing to cover his body.

His alarm bells were ringing, and he knew why; there was a strange rich-looking man at the head of the room. His skin was pale-white, and his hair was short-cut and blonde with a goatee; probably around his late-forties if Tadashi were to guess his age. His icy eyes gave him an elevator look, lighting up with this sick little light when they took in his naked body and every gruesome enhancement put on fully display.

_This man is evil_ , Tadashi's gut screamed, and Tadashi fully agreed.  _I have to get away from him, my life depends on it._

His breaths quickened when the man stepped closer to him. There was nothing he wanted more right now than returning to the claustrophobic Institution halls and into the waiting arms of his friends trapped down there. He wanted to swat away the man's cold hand when it gripped his chin and tilted his face harshly to the side, but he knew that if he moved he'd lose his life. He could only stare back at the man as he peered, almost like he was looking for something to critique, into his prosthetic eye.

"I knew you were perfect to put as the head." The man's voice was slimy and smug as it cooed at him, though his Japanese pronunciation was a little difficult to understand. "Leader must be strongest out of his soldiers... I assume he isn't disappointing?"

"So far 171 is a success," the woman behind him confirmed. Her voice and strange way of speaking Tadashi was already used to- she spoke in Japanese to give him orders;  _lie down, lift arm, stand up, stop screaming_ . But still, listening to her talk was like nails on a chalkboard. "He accepts changes nicely."

"He's beautiful," the man complimented, turning Tadashi's face to the other side, as if he were a showhorse inspected by a potential buyer. But Tadashi felt far from cherished or praised; every word that came out of the man's mouth pushed him closer and closer to running out the door. "We should use Japanese bases more often- their kind seems most adaptable." He frowned then. "We not here to enhance other country's peoples. Still, we get success, it first step to fullfilling contract."

The man turned his eyes away from Tadashi, however his hand still held him firmly by the face. Those icy eyes glimmered at the woman as he shifted to that language Tadashi couldn't understand; however it sounded a lot like praise, because his experimenter stood proudly beside him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

Tadashi blinked awake then, the middle of the night greeting him like an old friend; a reprieve from the memory. He didn't even wait for his brain to catch up before he was shaking away from their cuddle-pile and out from the van's doors.

He barely got outside before he returned everything he had eaten that day. He hacked and coughed for breath once it was over, but the disgusting taste in his mouth lingered long after it was over.

Fuck.

_ Fuck . _

His fingers dug into the sides of his lower torso, so deep it hurt. The pain distracted him a little, it was his own pain- he was in charge of it. If he had talons like Hitoka or Shoyo, relief would be even easier, but he had to make do with his stupid blunt fingers.

The blizzard had calmed down substantially, the wind did not howl anymore, but the soft snowflakes still fell from the sky, gentle and bright against the black sky. They settled on his hair and his clothes and his face, and even when his fingers still dug and pinched at his skin, he tossed his head up, closed his eyes, hung open his mouth and held out his tongue. Not many hit their mark, but the ones that did tingled when they hit his tastebuds.

The pain had him gasping, and he could feel tears rolling down into his ears, and yet he did not stop. It was always hard to stop when he got started, even when he knew he should.

This was okay.

This was not okay.

"Yama- Tadashi?"

Kei's voice was low and soft, and his gentle hands wrapped around his wrists and carefully drew them away from his sides.

Tadashi didn't struggle; only started to make pathetic sobbing noises. Everything was awfully wet. His skin was crawling and stinging and the places where metal burrowed into him hurt more than ever before and it all felt so, so wrong.

A line of blood dribbled out from the corner of his mouth.

"Hey, hey, shhh, calm down," Kei whispered urgently, and drew Tadashi's hands to his own waist. He almost waited for them to start clawing and pressing and pinching, but they never did. Why would they? This was Kei; Tadashi would never hurt him.

"Don't hurt yourself either," Kei reminded him, almost as if he had read his thoughts. The snowflakes caught beautifully in his hair, which sparkled in the Tadashi's cyan eye-light. Kei's pupils also flashed in the darkness the moment the light reflected off of them; like a cat's or a dog's when brightness hit them just right. It wasn't Tadashi's first time noticing that little detail, but it never ceased to fascinate him.

"Sorry," he apologised, but Kei only frowned.

"If I'm not allowed to destroy myself, neither are you," he told him. "The rule goes both ways." He shuffled to stand side-by-side with him, and carefully placed an arm around his shoulder. Kei raised his head up to the sky, facing the neverending fall of snow, so Tadashi did the same.

There was something therapeutic about the cold, especially when it was gently falling on your face.

"I'm sorry Kei-kun," Tadashi whispered into the night. "You keep having to come to my side, I'm sorry I'm being a pain. I shouldn't really be falling apart like this... God, I'm a nuisance."

The arm around him tightened before he heard Kei sigh deeply.

"The amount of times-" Kei started "-you've pulled me out of night terrors, or stopped me from doing things that only hurt me more... I've lost count of it all."

There was a little pause.

"You've done so many things for me, Tadashi, even before any of this happened."

Huh?

Tadashi looked back at the blonde, but Kei would not look at him. He still stubbornly faced the sky, not even reacting when snowflakes caught on his eyelashes.

"From the beginning, you were there by my side," Kei continued quietly. "You were my friend and you didn't give up on me, even when I was terrible. I'm not the one who constantly comes to your side, you're the one who constantly comes to mine."

He swallowed visibly.

"I know this may sound awful, but... I'm happy you're here with me," said he. "You don't deserve all of this... but I don't know if I could've kept-  _could_ keep myself together, if you weren't here. I don't think I would've ever kept it together if you weren't with me. I would've been incredibly lonely, that's for sure."

Tadashi could only look at him in amazement as he spoke. Kei... thought all of that?

"I'm glad I met you," Kei told him, and finally looked at him. His reflective eyes were soft, his pupils blown, and his lips curled into a small smile.

Even if Tadashi wanted to, he couldn't stop himself from falling into Kei. They wrapped their arms around each other, quietly embracing. Kei's usually extraordinarily-slow heartbeat was now hammering rapidly between them, matching Tadashi's beat for beat. Why did he feel so warm all of a sudden?

"I love you," Tadashi dared to confess.

"I love you too," Kei whispered back.

This really wasn't the place where Tadashi imagined his confession would take place. He'd imagined falling cherry blossom petals, the beginning heat of spring, a clear sky. But so what if all that was replaced by a dark snowfall, metal limbs, fake organs and eternal peril, when it had ended just as he'd dreamed?

Kei loved him too. That was all that mattered right now.

They returned into the van a few minutes later, when exhaustion threatened to take Tadashi's consciousness right then and there. To their non-surprise Hitoka and Shoyo had moved to replace Tadashi's former position on Tobio's chest. They looked so at peace when they slept, and their sight filled Tadashi with more of that warmth. He lay down beside Hitoka, comfortably lining his spine with the curves of her body, Kei embraced him from the front, their legs tangling messily together.

"I love you," Kei said again, and Tadashi relaxed into the slow stroke of fingers against his cheek.

_I love you too._


	11. TSUKISHIMA - A TASTE OF HOME

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geez it’s already march!? What the hell, time flies!  
> Sorry it took so long! School decided to take all of my time, add to that a horrible writer’s block. :(  
> Special thanks to the Minecraft soundtrack helping me get back into the swing of things!
> 
> Anyways; enjoy!
> 
> Thank you for your comments and kudos everybody!

They were dead. They had to be. They were dead and this was hell. There couldn't be any other explanation. Tsukishima wouldn't believe it. This couldn't be real life. This was a nightmare. This was hell. Tsukishima couldn't wrap his head around it. Why was this happening? What had he done, in this life or a previous one, to illicit such fury from the gods? What had any of them done? Had they even done anything? Or did fate point a cruel finger at the target on their backs and decided to rip everything they had to shreds?

Or had it decided to simply burn it all down?

Tsukishima had seen all of his things flung together into a heap; his schoolbag, his headphones, his glasses and even the clothes they had stripped from his back- and he watched it all burn. Until those precious things were nothing but charred black ashes.

He may not have understood the strange language they spoke, but he sure as hell understood that wordless display.

Tsukishima did not give them the satisfaction of screaming when they held the tattoo gun to his skin. He held his head defiantly high when they fitted him with a disgusting blue robe, and looked them dead in the eyes with a glare filled with rage.

He even saw some of the staff return his hostile glare, and Tsukishima could only quietly seethe as he tried to curse them to hell with his sight alone; and he hoped that these bastards would know that he'd be a tough nut to crack.

Except that Tsukishima had severely overestimated his resolve.

He'd tried to defy them. He really did. Believe him, he really did.

The agony of being ripped open was like nothing Tsukishima had ever felt. The unnatural, terrifying people with the fake faces were horrifying to look at.

_ You can stay in your cell, if you so choose. We'll take one of your friends instead, and as a gift from you, we'll forgo the anaesthetic. _

That threat always got him to cave in.

Tsukishima hadn't managed to put up any fight at all when he gave up. It was easier to get his head down; he wasn't getting out of here either way.

The one thing that Tsukishima was grateful for was that he did not have to sleep alone.

The cell they were held in itself was not warm. Cold was the only thing Tsukishima could describe it as. It resembled a shared asylum bedroom, yet with no windows, and much smaller in size. There were only five beds in this room, the frames comprised of metal rebar, the mattresses tough and firm, the pillows stiff, the bedsheets sterilised. Grey walls loomed in invasively, the steel-barred door cast long shadows from the dull white light of the corridors outside.

It was not the room Tsukishima was particularly enthusiastic about; it was the four other first years. After being corroded by prolonged, isolated moments of repeated terror, he usually got to return to comfort and warmth. Their sight, their voices, their touch; it was all like music to him.

That was only 'usually', however. It did not mean they got to spend every second together.

Like now.

Tsukishima was the only one awake, laying on his back as motionless as was possible, and yet the stitches across his chest were still blazing with dull pain. They had ripped out his heart and stuffed something else in its place; something unnatural and disgusting. It whirred so loudly- like the inner workings of a machine, dully beeping every time it pumped slow but too hard against his ribcage. It was interfering with his lungs and he almost couldn't breathe.

Yachi was the only one in the cell with him, and she clutched to his waist as she slept. She had been so out of it when she had returned quite a while ago; epiphora ran from her eyes and she had been hyperventilating really, really fast. She barely registered anything Tsukishima had tried to say to her, and she screamed a fair bit- Tsukishima was fully convinced she didn't recognise him.

This wasn't the first time she had come back like this, but it was the first time Tsukishima was left to deal with it alone.

He had managed to coerce her to lay with him on his bed, and eventually to sleep; assuring her that he was a friend, he wouldn't hurt her, that it would be okay.

What had they been giving her? This shit was neither normal nor healthy; couldn't they see that it was nearly driving her insane? It was  _terrifying_ .

Hopefully after she woke up, the effects would be weaker and Yachi would calm down. At least when she slept she felt no distress, and Tsukishima tilted his head (despite the pang of pain at the movement) to get a better look at her. If her chest hadn't been moving, Tsukishima would've said she was dead. His hand was in her hair, and he watched her face. He still remembered what she looked like before the drugs, and wondered if she'd ever look that healthy again.

At least she breathed normally, and since he couldn't, he tried to coordinate his breathing with hers.

The crescendo of footsteps broke Tsukishima's already fumbling concentration, and a new wave of panic washed over him.

_They're coming._

Slowly Tsukishima turned onto his half-side to cement an iron grip onto Yachi's hospital robe, praying with all his might that whatever this new pump beating in his chest was, it would hold out.

Tsukishima couldn't recall a time where he was more scared than now. This almost didn't feel real: this wasn't real life was it? This had to be hell.

The key was turning in the lock, and Tsukishima shrunk back.  _No. Go away. Go away._ The metal door swung open, and the dull shadow of a person blocked the artificial light from pouring in. The stumble was all that Tsukishima needed to flood the panic out of his body.

Despite the intense arrhythmia and Yachi clutching to his stomach, Tsukishima managed to pull himself up to sit.

"Hinata."

The middle blocker was barely standing, his hands shielding his stomach. His cheeks were streaked, and even though he made no sound, Tsukishima knew he had been crying.

Tsukishima opened his arms for him, and Hinata stiffly clambered onto the bed with him, and leaned into him carefully. He gave a quiet sob, and Tsukishima just put his hand round the back of his head and held him to his shoulder. Relief flooded Tsukishima as he hugged Hinata tighter. They took him away so long ago, held him in whatever separate room under whatever torture they decided upon this time. But he was back; breathing and alive.

Kageyama and Yamaguchi had still not returned. Tsukishima hadn't seen them in what seemed like years.

Where were they? Were they alright? Would he ever see them again?

"They cut me open again," Hinata told him, voice weak and almost failing. "Th-They cut me open-"

"Shh, don't think about it," Tsukishima assured him, and only grew more relieved when he felt the ginger's arms embrace him too. "It's over for now. It's over."

Hinata's touch soothed his erratic heartbeat, just a little, and eventually he got them both to lay down again.

"Try to fall asleep," he suggested, then wished he could take his own advice. "Here, rest your head here." He guided Hinata down to where his chest was, avoiding the still-fresh wound on his left.

And in spite of every horrible recent thing, Hinata hesitated. "C-Can I?"

"Go ahead. Lay down."

Hinata's head was a comfortable weight, his cold toes were pressed against his shins, and a soft arm reached over to bundle into Yachi's robe. But even when his soft, steady breaths joined hers, Tsukishima couldn't get any shut eye.

So he stared into the ceiling, and wondered;

Were people searching for them? How far away from home were they? How well were they hidden? Was there even a chance of being found and rescued? Any chance at all? No matter how infinitesimally small?

What were the chances of escape? Was that even worth considering?

Tsukishima's eyes turned towards the barred door, and the horrors that existed beyond it.

Escape would be impossible.

Rescue was their only hope. Their families were probably looking for them, they'd have the whole region, if not, the entire prefecture looking for them. They'd have them out of here in no time... right?

Time droned on like that. Slowly and without any means of measuring. When was the last time they'd seen the sky, or breathed fresh air? How long had they been rotting down here for? It was definitely a long time now, it had to be; Tsukishima had lost track of time long ago.

It must've been a thousand years before Tsukishima heard footsteps echoing down the corridor again. He was just about to dose off, too, when the panic woke him up again. The sound awoke Yachi too, but she was quiet, her eyes just a little bit more sober yet just as afraid.

The door opened again, and in came a tall brown-haired man in a lab coat. He had a scowl painted on his face.

The person had thankfully not come to take anyone away; his raspy command was so difficult to understand as it almost wasn't Japanese- Tsukishima didn't understand half of it.

Yet he found himself up on his feet in less than a few seconds, despite the painful cramping in that heart that should've been more than enough to floor him again. Hinata and Yachi stood at either side of him, straight and to attention and not paying mind to any stitches or wounds that they probably should, and Tsukishima could see the agony in their eyes.

How was it that they broke him so quickly? Wasn't it just yesterday that Tsukishima had been trying to make life as difficult as possible for these bastards? And now he was obedient to every command, as if they had trained him like a fucking dog.

Tsukishima didn't even have time to blink.

He didn't even have time to blink before he found himself trudging lifelessly behind Hinata along the neverending liminal corridors, the small metal collar burning at his skin like acid, now even more so when it shifted by the pull of the thin, stiff wires that were used to link his to Hinata's at the front, and Yachi's round the back. If Hinata hadn't been chained to the man up front, they could run. But even then, they'd have to move in unison, and wouldn't get very far.

These wretched collars only came off during procedures, for showers and for sleep-hours- and there was no way of getting them off themselves- Tsukishima had tried, more than once.

The man brought them to the 'cafeteria' for a lack of a better term; really it should just be called 'the eating room'. That's all that they do here, and the room is bland and unfit for any other purpose. It was already supervised by about two staff members, and to Tsukishima's surprise, Kageyama was already sitting at one of the tables.

From the way Hinata perked up in front of him, he knew the littler middle blocker noticed him too, and wanted to call out to him, but the yank against his neck had him silenced before he could even speak a word.

At least Hinata was still Hinata, even if he were as terrified as they all were. His eyes blazed defiantly bright, as if he took it upon himself to burn for all of them. Tsukishima had found himself clinging to Hinata's sunshine personality more and more. He was the brightest of the five of them, he'd always be bright. Tsukishima used to shun the shrimp's light, but now he felt he could bask in it forever. As long as Hinata's fire burned, everything would be okay.

They did not speak as they joined the raven-hair at the table, their wires clipped to the table and to each other as the man leading them stepped back. Instead, the four of them only shared a quick, reassuring look to check if everyone was alive. Talking was forbidden, after all.

When Kageyama hesitantly leaned into him, Tsukishima felt him trembling. He didn't push him away like he would've if this was still real life, but instead moved so the boy could more comfortably line his body with his. Goosebumps trailed against every exposed piece of skin, and Kageyama could barely eat; he was shaking so badly.

Tsukishima stared at him for a long moment, before turning to his own food. What was it? It looked like custard but not quite, smelled vaguely of potato and something else.

The first few times Tsukishima had given into habit and thanked for the food, but had soon stopped when the food turned out to be tasteless, minimal hospital food. This was not something to clap your hands over, and Tsukishima refused to waste a good tradition over this... filth.

The cutlery was also chained to the table, and that did not help at all; since Tsukishima had perhaps only used a knife and a fork maybe once or twice in his life.

Sometimes Tsukishima couldn't even identify what he was being given to eat. It didn't taste of anything, and how it gave him sustenance was beyond him.

Rage and fear. That was all he felt nowadays.

* * *

His arm was gone.

His left arm was completely gone. It wasn't here. It wasn't attached to his shoulder. It was gone. It was gone. They took it. It was  _gone_ .

Tsukishima couldn't think about anything else.

His arm was  _gone_ .

He could feel something else; something  other , sitting in its place. It burrowed beneath his skin, way too deep and invasive and so so  _painful_ . What was this? Why was it here? Where was his arm!?

_ It's gone . _

Tsukishima could hear himself making animalistic sobbing grunts, so forceful he was almost choking on them. He didn't care- let them suffocate him. He wanted to die.

Through blurring eyes he could see the bright white lights hanging above him, the shadows of people looming over him. He was laying in a pool of his own blood, it was thick and wet and it  _stank_ .

His arm was gone.

_His arm is gone._

He had screamed for so many people in sheer desperate insanity; his mum, Akiteru-Nii, Azumane-san; he'd even called for Bokuto, Kuroo and Akaashi- knowing full well none of them would ever hear his cries, let alone come save him.

He couldn't do anything, couldn't even move. All he could do is lay there on that cold metal table and cry like a helpless child.

He wanted to go home.

It was nearly over. He'd get to go back to the sleep-room soon, it'll be over soon.

The restraints broke for a split second, and Tsukishima bucked up in a frantic attempt to flee. Whatever it was that was pumping in his chest was pumping so hard he could feel it behind his eyes. There was sudden shouting, but Tsukishima pushed an unfamiliar strength into every muscle that he had; twisting and attempting to leap away. Yet his bare feet slipped, his hand lost its grip, and it sent him falling over the edge. His chin and chest thudded onto the floor, his shins caught onto the edge of the table above and left him stuck. He felt the stitches rip, he felt his muscles tear; white-hot pain blazed and Tsukishima screamed louder than he had in his entire life.

This was hell. This had to be.

A sharp thing jabbed between his shoulderblades, such a tiny inconvenience Tsukishima hardly noticed it. His already swimming vision darkened around the edges, before completely winking out.

* * *

"Kei! Kei! Wake up!"

Kei registered the warmth of arms embracing him before anything else. His hyperventilating breaths and the echo of his screams came second.

"Breathe... just breathe..." Tobio's voice made itself known third, and the moment Kei was aware of him, he scrambled to grasp onto him like his life depended on it. His heartbeat hurt inside his chest, almost shattering his ribs; it's mechanical whirring was so so  loud . His breaths were heavy and deep and difficult.

"Calm down," Tobio repeated quietly, reaching forward to brush the tears away from his cheeks. "Calm down. Where are you right now?"

Question.  _That's a question_ _._ Tobio just asked him a question; a deep part of his brain kickstarted with habit. He was asked a question- he needed to answer it.

"I'm out," he replied slowly, hesitantly. "I'm not there. We made it out."

He could hear Tobio give out a confirmational grunt as he gathered Kei against himself, crossing a leg over his waist whilst reaching a hand over to begin trailing gently up and down his spine; it wasn't painful when the touch was this light, and Kei arched his back and focused on its brilliant feel.

A small body shuffled behind him and lay against his upper back. "It's just a nightmare," Hitoka assured him, dragging her fingers through his hair. "It's not real anymore. It's just a nightmare."

Just a nightmare.

Kei could not physically express how terrified he was that all this; their escape, Norilsk, Gecko-sama, the cold Russian roads; was just a hallucination. Every time he tried to fall asleep he was afraid he'd wake up back there again.

Maybe this whole thing was just his brain's way of coping with the trauma. They'd tried and failed to escape and now he was making up a delusion in which they were successful and they got away?

It was easy telling himself that it was just a nightmare, but what should he do when those nightmares  _used to be real?_   


"Thank you-" Tobio muttered into his cheek "-for waking me up. My dreams hadn't been the best either."

If the others had also been getting nightmares, then this reality had to be real? Or had he just been intertwining their presences, thoughts and experiences into this desperate fantasy of his?

...Had he made up his confession to Tadashi as well? Had he imagined telling Tadashi that he loved him, and imagined his best friend returning his feelings? Had he dreamt all of that? That seemed most like a dream; Kei had kept that in for quite a long time and had never got to spill it back when everything made sense.

Did one of them die and he was in denial-

"Shhhh," Hitoka hushed his thoughts as she raised herself up to lay her chin on his metal shoulder. Her hand never stopped stroking his hair. "You're not there anymore. Calm down, it's okay. We're here."

Tobio took his hand away from his spine to instead rest it over his chest, before slowly starting to knead into it in a gentle massage. "It's okay," said he, and Kei could only melt. "We're all alive. We're all here.”

It was okay. They were alive.  _We're all alive_ _._ This was not the Institution. They were out.  _We made it._   


Yet Kei could not fall back asleep, even when Tobio and Hitoka's hands fell to rest upon him, Kei was still awake. Instead of attempting to doze off again, he focused on keeping himself calm. He marvelled about how, when all light disappeared, the world became monochrome; green-tinged greyscale, objects pale and bright, almost white, while backgrounds were darker than midnight. That was something he did not normally see, not with glasses, not without. And even now, it was a rare sight. Kei noticed it only worked in total darkness, and more often than naught he had the faint glow of Tadashi's false eye to keep him company throughout sightless nights.

Gecko groaned against the wind, and Kei listened to her complaints. He listened to the steady, somehow synchronised breaths of his companions around him. He felt the cold nip at his skin, a stark contrast to the more welcome heat that burst from the others’ bodies.

A hallucination could not be this clear, this detailed if he never was here in the first place. Just as the Institution had been real back when he tried to convince himself that was just a nightmare too. They were now just nightmares of past events. That's what the Institution consisted of now. Flashbacks. Not flash-nows or flash-forwards. Flash- _backs_ .

The present was here. Inside the Gecko; a probable safe-haven. If the Institution was Hell, this had to be purgatory.

It was okay. This was the present. This was not the Institution. They made it out. It was over. They were going home. They were going to make it home.

Kei snuggled closer to Tobio, his breathing finally matching theirs.

* * *

The next time Kei opened his eyes, the pretty green-greyscale was gone, replaced by the familiar, dull light of morning. The cars were rushing loudly outside, their thundering slightly muted, yet so goddamn loud.

Tobio and Hitoka were gone.

That got Kei to snap open his eyes and whip his head up, regretting it immediately afterwards as his vision blacked out for a moment and his head spun. He tried again, slower this time, and noticed that only Tadashi still slept, a person's width away from him, his back turned towards him.

Well, that wouldn't do.

Kei rolled over, fitting himself comfortably against his best friend, and after a moments hesitation, wrapped an arm around his waist.

He didn't manage to settle down again before Tadashi began to stir, and eventually shuffled round to face him, grimacing with the effort as he did so.

"'Morning," Tadashi whispered quietly.

"Good morning," Kei replied hesitantly.  _Moving hurts you. Staying still hurts you. I don't like it._

They did not say anything more; silence fell between them. Tadashi's fogged gaze lifted and locked onto his, and he let out a long breath. It was at that moment Kei realised how utterly exhausted this boy was; his breathing was slow and raspy and painful, his heartbeat just as similar. The eye that was alive- his original narrow olive-brown eye- was dry and dark around its edge. The fake eye was lifeless, like that of a doll. The scar tissue lining his neck and jaw had darkened into burgundy from the previous blood red; the black stitches upon his throat were just as stiff as ever. And the raw wounds at his hips were still bright and searing- where Tadashi had clawed at like a madman. They did not bleed, but Tadashi was always one to bruise easily.

Why did this happen? How did this happen to someone so sweet and innocent?

Kei wrapped a hand around Tadashi's back, pressing him so close to his chest, and the smaller boy returned the gesture, just as gentle. Slowly they embraced, and Kei let his eyes fall closed and tried hard not to think. He didn't want to think about anything heavy for a while (or ideally, at all). Was it bad that sometimes he wished he could just stay in total darkness forever, watching the world slowly pass him by in greenish greyscale?

Tadashi's forehead touched his, and his hands rested on his arms. His touch was soothing, gentle and familiar, and Kei let himself drown in him.

He remembered how he'd always analyse every touch they shared- back in Miyagi. He'd sit at his desk almost every evening, headphones cushioned around his ears as he sorted through countless songs in the playlist he couldn't help but make. What was it titled...? He'd named it something inconspicuous, so that no-one who had somehow gotten into his Spotify account (the playlist wasn't public) could figure out the reason behind its existence, but the name still had ties to  _him_ .

Kei remembered how every song made him think of his freckled best friend, every song attempted to describe the strange feelings he'd harboured towards that boy. He'd listen to all the lyrics, while thinking and over-thinking every brush of the hand when passing a towel or a numbered sign; while fantasising about scenarios that would never-  _will now_ never happen.

What did he name that playlist?

Kei had actually forgotten he used to do that at all.

He'd forgotten so much of his life before the Institution. He'd forgotten the melody of his favourite songs. He'd forgotten the taste of strawberry shortcake. He'd forgotten how a good block felt, the satisfaction he'd feel after the ball dropped on the other side of the court.

Even now, when he remembered that those things existed, he had no idea how they felt, sounded, tasted.

He'd almost forgotten what his own name was. He remembered 'Tsukishima'... but the name 'Kei' had come so close to slipping his mind.

_173 lift arm. 173 lay down. 173 come with me._

_Alright 173, I see you not agreeable. Your friends easier to work with, we'll take them instead. As a gift from you, we'll forgo the anaesthetic._

Kei wearily opened his eyes again, trying to focus on the present once more, but only found Tadashi's heterochromic eyes gazing steadily back at him. The stitches on his throat pulsed as he struggled to swallow; but he did not speak. Instead, a metal hand came up to pull away the stray white-gold strands of his hair that had fallen onto his face.

Kei, completely out of reflex, leaned into the touch. It was new and yet familiar; and Kei was slowly realising how much he actually enjoyed the feel of fingers in his hair. No matter how distressed he always seemed to get, that little thing never failed to calm him down.

He let out a steadying breath, and Tadashi's real eye suddenly lit up with mirth, and his lips quirked into a soft smile.

It was real...? Or was it his wishful thinking? Those  _I love you_ 's couldn't be real: it was all just a dream-

"I love you," Tadashi whispered, and those three words rocked Kei's world.

It was real. All of it was real.

Tadashi loved him.

Kei's black-metalled thumb reached up to brush ever-so gently against the freckles that, despite fading significantly due to the cold and darkness of the Institution, were still faintly there; like stars trying to cling to life before morning snubbed their light completely. "I love you too."

_I love you_ too.   


That look in Tadashi's eyes enchanted him, and Kei was unable to look away.

He hadn't felt this way in a long, long time. At this point, this feeling was completely foreign and unfamiliar, and Kei had no idea what to do now.

"Don't think," Tadashi assured him again, then shuffled positions again. He tried to muffle another agonised groan, but wasn't really successful. What he was successful in was pressing his ear to his chest- no doubt hearing that horrible heartbeat of his- and wrapping himself around Kei's still-lanky body like a koala. "Don't think," he repeated, still able to look up at him.

But as Kei adjusted to their new position, he found himself frowning again at the pained whine that Tadashi could not suppress. The foreign feeling paled into a more familiar worry, and even more familiar rage.

_ They hurt you . _

"Don't think yet. Just be here with me for now."

How Kei wanted to just lay here forever, unable to feel pain. He'd hold Tadashi forever and forget everything that had ever happened.

He knew that it was not possible. Even laying here was suddenly proving to be difficult.

It was like Kei could not afford the luxury of normal love anymore. Tadashi couldn't either; both of them weren't normal. They could never do anything normal people-in-love could do; they couldn't stroll around, hand in hand, for everyone to see; they could never enjoy a quiet evening with the world shut out; they could never do even any of the most mundane things that Kei had so long fantasised about- shopping together, going to the cinemas together, doing even any normal thing together. They weren't 'people' anymore, not with these metal limbs and silent killer programs buried deep below the surface of their subconscious.

And what was their love now? Just another coping mechanism?

No. No, it couldn't be just that. Kei would never let it be that.

"I love you, Tadashi," he told him once more, just cement it in, permanently. Get it through his thick skull that this was okay. It was okay to love him; both in a normal world, and in whatever mess they lived now.

The rushing of the cars outside was suddenly so much louder.

And then - " _Tobio_ _!_ "

"I'm okay- I'm okay!"

"You're clearly not! You're bleeding!"

_You weren't there when they needed you most._

Kei was scrambling onto his feet the moment the words registered, feet almost slipping and his body wailed in pain with the sudden movement, but Kei was so used to it by now he barely faltered. He knocked the van's doors open and almost fell out onto the concrete. His gaze lifted to meet the duo that he used to call The Bane of His Existence Part One and Part Two; who were evidently trying (and failing) to be discrete against the van's longer side.

It didn't even take two looks to see that Shoyo was indeed correct- Tobio was clearly not alright. If Kei didn't know any better; he'd say that Tobio was a vampire that had just fed, with the way the red dripped from his jaws onto the front of his shirt and down into the very white snow.

_No, no, not again-_

"I'm okay-" Tobio insisted, but his body betrayed him as the sentence was cut short by a choked-off cough. Shoyo caught him just in time when his legs temporarily gave out, yet still he carried on- "It's not bad, I'm fine-"

"God’s sake, Bakayama," Shoyo scowled at him. "We're not blind; this is just like that one time you tried to deny your nose  _obviously_ bleeding!"

_ Kei remembered that . _

"I'm not lying, dumbass," Tobio still tried, though he slumped into the redhead's waiting arms. "It's not as bad as usual."

"It's still an attack," Tadashi said as he swept past Kei, moving easier now, but still not painlessly, he could see. "You're doing yourself no favours denying these things."

Tobio grimaced at him, but before he could protest Shoyo managed to prop himself up under his shoulder with one great heave, and began to pull his stubborn highness in the direction of the van's entrance. Tadashi was quick to take the other side, swinging Tobio's other arm over his own shoulders.

The three of them sat on the edge of Gecko's floor, and Kei joined them after a moment's hesitation, sitting snugly against Shoyo. The van was just wide enough to fit the four of them, their legs swung over the edge, and they were left to watch the slow snow fall onto the thundering, desolate highway they had found themselves on. It was still vaguely dark, and the cars that rushed past still had their headlights on.

"-Dumbass! Stop fussing! It's over!"

Kei gave the duo a calculating look; but it softened when he noticed Shoyo frantically pressing his ear against the taller's chest. Kei made to reach out to him, but Tobio chose that exact moment to cough out a specifically-large red phlegm, which unluckily caught onto Shoyo's already bloody hair.

It was going to turn fully black, at this rate.

"So much for 'over'," Kei sighed at him, reaching out to tilt that raven head to look at him. "You feeling any better?"

"Abso-fucking-lutetly not," Tobio answered, glaring at him as if it were obvious- it probably was, actually. His tongue tried to clean his lips, but with it just as red it did absolutely nothing. Tobio's attention didn't linger on him for too long, and instead turned back to Shoyo; who Kei realised was shaking. "Calm down, dumbass, I'm still here. I'm okay."

"You better be!" Shoyo snapped up at him through a sudden mess of angry tears- no, that wasn't anger. That was despair.

Where was that spark in his eyes? Would Kei never see it again? Was it gone forever? He shuffled forwards, effectively sandwiching the little redhead between him and Tobio- who thankfully had steadied his breathing and was now just content in leaning against Tadashi's temple.

_Don't think_ ; Tadashi had said to him.

That was the problem; he could never stay in that wonderful, thoughtless state for long. Everything was happening at once and even if one moment of rest was allowed, it was soon snatched away.

Sometimes Kei wished that he would just... stop existing. He didn't want to die; but rather just... cease being.

They'd come so far though, everything would've been pointless if they just gave up now.

"Is everything alright?" Hitoka asked as she stepped up to them, carrying a few bottles of water and something what looked like plastic-wrapped sandwiches.

"It's fine," Tobio tried to say, but Hitoka grimaced back at him disapprovingly before thrusting a water bottle into his hands.

"You're vomiting blood again, it's kinda obvious," she told him, passing out the other bottles to the rest of them before taking Tobio's cheeks within her hands. "It isn't fine- the moment something happens, you need to tell us."

"I will, I will," the raven assured her with his own sigh. "I'll be fine Ya- Hitoka-chan."

Hitoka gave him a small smile, then awkwardly realising there was no room left for her; but to that Kei came to her rescue, offering a place upon his lap, which she took gratefully. Her lined with his chest, her height perfect for him to place his chin upon the crown of her head.

Kei reached an arm around Shoyo's waist, calming slightly down when the latter rest his temple against the former's side. The other middle blocker's hand was still tightly laced with Tobio's, who had fully been swept into Tadashi's arms.

The highway was still as loud as ever. The cars possibly even faster. And the bottled water tasted of plastic.

* * *

"You're surprisingly good at this."

The blush spreading against Hitoka's cheeks made Kei smile at her. "Y-You think so?"

"Yeah." And Kei wasn't lying; Hitoka drove behind the wheel as if she had been doing this for a long time. If he were honest, it was almost a little creepy.

"Yeah," Tadashi assured her from the backseat, and he patted at her shoulder, and the girl's blush darkened. She blushed really prettily, Kei noticed, the red complemented her eye colour.

He sighed and tilted his head back. What a relief- Kei had started to seriously fear that he would turn out to be the only available driver; the Gecko jerked back and forth, unable to decide whether to go or not when Tobio was in front of the wheel, and shut her own engine off a couple of times in indignant offence- Tadashi was hopeless because it had turned out that he had too little control of his limbs for such delicate manoeuvres- and Shoyo hadn't managed to get the Gecko to move at all.

But maybe Gecko was just playing favourites and preferred having Hitoka in front of her wheel over anyone else.

Goddammit, the van's name was really growing on him, wasn't it?  _Dramatic bitch-van_ was a name that Kei preferred. Though he really tried not to judge; clinging to something was a normal response. As much as Kei appreciated Gecko's help and shelter; he'd still rather fall asleep with four familiar bodies. He wasn't even sure if he could sleep alone anymore, he wasn't sure if he'd ever want to.

"This is really strange," Hitoka admitted with a laugh high with hysteria, though her body was calm and collected and moved so fluidly, as if she had done this a million times before. "It's kinda disturbing- we're sitting in a metal tube going way faster than we're naturally supposed to do; I make one mistake and we're all dead." Gecko growled quietly in protest, and Hitoka giggled quietly and patted her dash. "You're not just a metal tube, don't worry, Gecko-sama."

Kei could only roll his eyes with a smile.

Hitoka's eyes were so clear, free of any sleep, and Kei found that he could breathe a little easier. She was so awake now, and even more so when they returned to the highway. Kei had inherited Tadashi's worries that Hitoka would one day fall asleep and never wake again- but now that she was more awake than ever, that fear seemed so far away.

Their journey resumed, and Tadashi had passed Kei the map that they had bought at the station that they had just left, and while he still couldn't make heads or tails of the cyrillic printed all over the page, he could still recognise the symbols. He's planned the route aloud, and had to swat away Shoyo's curious hands as they tried to poke at the paper (he was successful one time, the hole smack-dab in the middle was evidence of that).

The falling snow had subsided, but the lands were still as white as a sheet of paper. As if someone had sucked out all the colour from the hills and the trees on the horizon. Kei was never a huge fan of winter, he preferred spring; when it wasn't too cold nor too hot, and the green was just as vibrant as ever. They had just entered December now- if Kei had been counting the days correctly; spring wouldn't come for another two months.

Never the less, Kei enjoyed spotting the occasional snow-covered cottage or a tree nearly doubling over with the white weight.

And he enjoyed listening to his friend's voices.

"I spy with my little eye; something the colour of... black."

"The road."

"Nope."

"The little buttons on Gecko's dash."

"Also no."

"Tobio's hair."

"Bingo."

"Alright! My turn! I spy with my little eye-"

Kei would've normally found this annoying; he usually wasn't fond of car rides- not without any music. But his music, his headphones, his phone were gone, and honestly; silence would be much worse than this. A lot of things would be much worse than this; and Kei eventually found his usual iron-will crumbling, and he joined in.

"I spy with my little eye, something the colour of white."

"The snow?"

"Oh how could you have  _possibly_ known?"

"Put some imagination into it!" Shoyo demanded hotly, but his upbeat voice only served to brighten Kei's mood, and he only flashed him a smirk. Even though the fire in his eyes was gone, and Tobio's words rattling about the back of his skull, he held onto that familiar annoyed expression.

Time seemed to pass by just a little more comfortably now.

"I spy with my little eye, something the colour of-"

"You need to take the next exit onto the other highway."

"Oh okay! Thanks! Anyways, I spy with my little eye, something the colour of blue!"

"Home!"

Kei whipped his head around in confusion, his eyebrows furrowed, and he wasn't the only one. Everyone had spun to look at Tobio, who had the most empty look upon his face, his mouth partially open, his eyes hollow as if they were looking through time itself.

"You feeling okay?" Shoyo nudged his best friend with an elbow, but Tobio ignored him completely, shaking his head before demanding;

"Open the windows."

Hitoka jumped a little in her seat. "Eh?"

"Open the windows," Tobio demanded again, his voice laced with so much desperation it should be impossible. "Please."

Kei met Tadashi's eye, but the pinch server looked just about as lost as him. Apparently Hitoka was as well, since it took her a solid few moments to actually process the request before the window from Tobio's side was sliding down. The moment it was down enough Tobio stuck his whole head outside, mouth agape, almost hyperventilating.

_What is he doing!?_

"TOBIO GET BACK INSIDE!" Tadashi yelled as Tobio leaned his entire upper body out the window, and Shoyo was already scrambling to pull him back by the shirt. A car behind them honked as Hitoka swerved, panicking, trying to close the window back up again.

"What were you thinking!?" Tadashi started to shout the moment Tobio had his ass back on the seat and the window was safely closed. "You were going to fall out of the car!"

"But-"

"Bakayama you can't do that! You could hurt yourself!"

"I-"

"Tobio-kun don't do that! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"But I-"

"Are you trying to get yourself killed, you moron!?"

"It's home! Can't you smell it!?" Tobio yelled over them all, and Kei had to take a moment to fully comprehend what the actual fuck the King had just said to him. Silence overtook them all, where everyone took a deep, testing breath, inevitably smelling only the Gecko's polyester seats and their own stench, and shook their heads.

"I-It's okay, you're probably low on iron after this morning," Hitoka tried to comfort him-

-only for Tobio to seethe back; "I'm  _not_ hallucinating. I can still smell it! Can't you!?"

He was met with an uncomfortable quietness, and Kei just looked awkwardly at his knees.

...What would home even smell like?

"Can't you?"

"No..." Shoyo was the first to speak for all of them, reaching out to cup Tobio's cheeks in his palms. "But even if home was here; don't do that again. Don't scare me like that again."

Tobio fell from desperate to... sad, and instead of shying away like he usually did, he melted into Shoyo's hands and closed his eyes.

"I really do smell home, though."

"I know you do, I know. Just stay here with me."

Kei could only think in despair;  _ he's losing his mind . _

He seriously considered clambering over the seats only to sit himself on Tobio's lap and never let him go again. At least until he had the assurance that Tobio would still be Tobio. Kei had no idea what he'd do if he lost him.

_Don't think about it- you haven't lost them. They're all here with you. They're all here._

"Wait a moment- I think I know what it is," Tadashi said, suddenly happily, and pointed through the front window.

And Kei turned back around just in time to catch a billboard standing on the side of the road, and even though the writing was just as unintelligible as ever, just looking at the design Kei knew it was advertising an Asian restaurant.

Asian restaurant.

Asian food.

Home food.

_ Home . _

Kei wasn't the only one to figure that out.

"Can we make a stop there!? Can we!? Can we!?" Shoyo started to shout, almost leaning his head between the two front seats, vibrating with excitement. Was this the first time Kei was on the same page with him? He felt the exact same way.

"Please!?" Tobio threw in his own two cents.

Tadashi had a wide smile on his face as he giggled; "Hitoka's the driver."

The very instant that statement left his mouth Hitoka clicked the left blinker and started to slow down. It was met with a loud cheer from the back seats, and when Kei turned to look at Hitoka, he noticed a giddy smile was also raised on her face.

"I've never been so hyped to eat something," she admitted to him, and Kei nodded his head in agreement.

"Neither have I. First time for everything."

It had never occurred to him how much he'd missed eating home-food. He'd been eating literal garbage for so long; maybe Hitoka was right about getting something proper to eat. It had certainly boosted morale; judging by the racket from the backseats.

The restaurant turned out to be a middle-sized establishment part of yet another series of roadside facilities (another gas station, another junk-food chain, something which looked like a motel?) surrounding a massive car park. Hitoka managed to coerce the Gecko into a neat packing spot, and while the stop pulled a little forward, Gecko had no complains, and waited patiently for Hitoka to shut her engine off.

Yeah, the van definitely had a favourite.

"How are we going to do this?" he asked instead, turning around in his seat once more.

"We've still got a lot saved up from the machines," Tadashi told him after getting the hyperactives to somewhat calm down. "Do you think they do take-aways?"

"There's a drive-through," Hitoka pointed out. "Do you want to do that?"

"It might be easier to order from inside," Tadashi countered, hand propping under his chin, two fingers over his lips in his thinking-pose. "We can't read Russian- so maybe they have pictures of the menu inside?"

"We look and smell like literal shit-" Kei pointed out. "This isn't a minimum-wage knock-off fast-food chain; they might actually refuse us service, or kick us out."

"We need to get cleaned up then!" Shoyo stated, as if it were obvious.

"You're  _caked_ in blood, dirt and grease," Kei snapped back, throwing him a look. "Without a shower you're not getting clean anytime soon."

"What about you?" Tobio countered. "You're the only one who's  _not_ covered in blood in some way. _And_ you know English."

Kei grimaced at him, pointing to the large dark stain on the navy tracksuit- where Tadashi had coughed up blood on the Norilsk rooftop.

"That could be anything. They won't notice."

"They  _will_ notice the fact that I haven't showered in at least two weeks. I'm smell disgusting," Kei objected.

Before he could keep complaining, Tadashi perked up. "I have an idea. Shoyo, you're coming with me; be back in a moment!" And with that, he grabbed their little spiker by the arm and pulled them both out of the Gecko, and both headed in the direction of the petrol station.

Kei watched them leave, before turning back to the raven-hair. "We've all just gotten used to smelling awful, that's why it's normal to us. To normal people we're jarring- have you not noticed the looks we've been getting?"

Tobio frowned back at him, obviously looking for a response, but before he could come up with one, Hitoka interjected. "Speaking of smelling things; if this really is the thing you were picking up on; how did you smell it from away back?"

Tobio didn't have an answer for that either.

"It's not the first time;" Kei remembered. "You picked up on the bread factory from horrendously far away- you know, the one with the trunk we've stowed away on?"

"But that's normal," Tobio protested weakly. "I can't help it."

"Can you still smell it?"

Tobio took in a breath through his mouth. "Yeah."

Kei suddenly noticed; "You smell through your mouth?"

"I do what?"

"You do," Kei told him. "Open your mouth."

" _Huh?_ "

Kei narrowed his eyes. "Just do it."

A look of uneasy awkwardness flashed across Tobio's face as he hesitantly complied, opening his jaws just wide enough for Kei to lean his head and look inside.

And what he saw was... surprising.

The entire roof of Tobio’s mouth was ridged. Not the minuscule ridges a normal human has- Kei decided as he ran his own tongue against the roof of his own mouth; but huge waves, like that of an animal. And in front of his upper front teeth, there were two holes.

_What the fuck is that!?_   


"Lemme see?"

Kei backed up and let Hitoka look too, and like Kei her face fell into utter confusion. Only for a moment, before she declared; "I think that's a vomeronasal organ."

Tobio hummed in question, trying his best to keep his mouth wide open, and Kei only raised his eyebrow.

"It's what we have that helps us smell," Hitoka elaborated. "We have one too; it's just that this one looks more like one belonging to an animal rather than a human. Like a dog's or a cat's."

"Okay that's a little creepy," Kei decided.

"It explains the super-sense of smell," Hitoka assured them. "Animals tend to have better senses of smell than humans and-"

Tobio's mouth clicked with the force he closed it, and he turned away to stare emptily out the window. When Kei reached out to comfort him, he flinched away. "Please don't," he whispered, and Kei took his hand back as quickly as if the air had burned him.

"Oh god, Tobi, I'm sorry," he started to apologise.

"Tobio-kun! I'm so sorry!" Hitoka babbled at the same time.

Tobio just shook his head, bringing his knees up to his chest. "It's fine, don't stress it. I'd just rather not know what else they'd done to me."

Kei knew this isolation habit; Tobio would always sleep separately when he had his days, and shun any physical touch in the waking hours. It bothered Kei more now than it did at first; since he wanted nothing more than to lay his head on his chest and apologise again, but he held back.

Tobio would come when he was ready. Just when that was... Kei didn't know if he had that kind of patience.

Gecko's doors opened then, and Tadashi popped his head inside. "Hey, come outside! We've got- is everything okay?"

"It's fine," Tobio repeated toughly. "Can I stay here?"

"Of course you can," Hitoka assured him. "Take as long as you need."

Tadashi waited until all doors were closed before asking; "What happened?"

"We found another Institution-change with Tobio... he didn't take it all that well," Kei explained quickly.

"Is he going to be okay?" Shoyo asked, suddenly wide-eyed and panicked. He raised himself to his tip-toes, but Tobio would not look at him, and the ginger boy deflated slightly, then leaned straight into Tadashi.

"He'll be fine," Kei said, hoping it was true. "He just needs time."

"What is it that you've found?"

"I'll explain later," Hitoka offered as she came round to their side. "Why don't you tell us what  _you're_ plotting?"

For an answer Shoyo held out the two cans he had been carrying in his arms. "Dry-shampoo and deodorant. It should be enough for a short while at least."

_Really?_

Kei just rubbed his eyelids. "Deodorant is not a shower in a can," said he.

"It's better than nothing."

"Can I see that?" Hitoka took the bottle of dry shampoo, looked at the instructions on the can, before sheepishly admitting; "Oh, I forgot I can't read." She waved her hand. "I'm sure it'll be fine." Her expectant eyes turned up to Kei. "Well? Ready to go  _Into The Wild_ _?_ "

"Not in the slightest," Kei admitted, but at her strong urging he sat down and let her start working on his hair.

It didn't take her long, and while at the end Kei still looked scruffy, he'd say it was a step up from 'disgusting'. But after being sprayed with nearly the whole can of deodorant, he still smelled... off-putting at best.

Yet still he put on his brave face; he was good at ignoring what people thought of him, after all.

And as Tadashi was fussing over his clothes, Shoyo bounced up into his line of vision again; "Can you get me egg over rice? Please!?"

"Yeah sure; what do you two want?"

" _ Tonkotsu _ ramen, please!" Hitoka volunteered, giving his hair one last ruffle before stepping back. "It might be a good idea to get onigiri too; for the road."

"That's a good idea," Tadashi agreed. "Get Kadsudon for me, would you? If they don't sell it anything with udon noodles is fine."

Kei hummed in understanding, before daring to poke his head into the Gecko again, where Tobio was still sitting motionless against the window. "Hey, Tobio? What do you want to eat?"

It was a while before the other muttered a quiet; "pork curry" as his answer.

* * *

The moment Kei stepped into the restaurant, he understood what Tobio had meant when he said 'home'.

Partially, maybe. Some of the smells he didn't recognise, but some, he did. Spring onions, garlic, chilli... is that MSG? He stood in the doorway, taking all of it in before it would inevitably be whisked away again. The smell, the sound of food being cooked, the inaudible chatter of the people at the tables. That smell, it was so strong Kei could even taste it; he smacked his lips, realised he was actually salivating and semi-discreetly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

He also realised he was fucking starving.

In all his life he was never this desperate to eat; his appetite used to be so minuscule. How it could've ever been was beyond him- he actually began to mourn all of the meals he'd skipped.

He could make up for it now.

The restaurant was dimmed in a low orange light, red lamps hung from the ceiling, many tables and chairs stood ordered on a polished dark wood floor. The restaurant wasn't full, by any means, but there were still a decent amount of people here.

It wasn't technically Japanese- though the aesthetic was much more familiar to him than anything he had come across thus far.

His stomach growled loudly, which got Kei to get over his sudden anxiety and step up to the counter.

The grimacing old man standing behind the counter barely looked up at him when he barked something in the harsh foreign tongue; what Kei assumed was some form of customer-service greeting.

If only Lev was here- that bastard knew how to speak Russian, he bragged about it almost every time he could. Shoyo had seemed to be fascinated with it, and Kei wasn't going to lie he had been envious of Haiba's bilingual abilities, but the more the douchebag rubbed it in the more that envy grew to simple annoyance.

That ability would come in pretty handy now.

"Uuhh, do you speak english?" he sheepishly tried, and when the man whipped his head up to give him a disapproving glare, he shrunk back. For a moment Kei was convinced that their attempts to clean him up were futile and this terrifying dude would throw him out anyways, but when he tossed his head back to yell out a name, he figured he'd panicked for nothing.

When a younger employee came running to the counter, the old man gestured to Kei with his head, barking a simple sentence at him before retreating into the depths of the kitchen.  _It smells good in the kitchen. It smells of heaven. It smells of home-_

"Hiya, I speak english! How may I help you?" the young boy's shrill voice got his attention, which had Kei hesitating for a long moment, wondering what to say. The boy looked far too young to be working as a cashier; to be working at all.

"Do you do take-aways?"

The boy seemed to smile wider. "Of course we do! Do you want to place an order?"

"Yes please."

Words could not describe how fast his nostalgia paled into uncomfortable awkwardness. It was so strange having to do exam-style questions in real life, and even those were easier, cuz he'd practised the answers beforehand. He just had to pray that his English vocabulary would not fail him.

The boy passed him a laminated menu, and at first Kei froze at the page full of cyrillic, but at a second-glance he noticed the familiar symbols underneath the names, and jumped for joy at the sight of writing he could finally read.

The hiragana and kanji weren’t the only things on there- there was also writing he couldn't read, but he chalked it up to other languages and didn't pay them much attention. To his delight, most of what they had planned on ordering  was on the menu, with the exception of onigiri  and Hitoka's  _ Tonkotsu _ ramen, but hopefully whatever kind they did serve would do (the item was simply named; ramen). Kei had decided on beef teriyaki for himself. He was just about to turn back to the smiling boy behind the counter, when he noticed something else on the menu, which he decided to order too.

After all of the difficult parts were over and he'd handed over the money, Kei breathed a mighty sigh of relief and stepped back, fitting one hand into the other neatly in front of himself, and waited patiently, though the anxiety was beginning to crawl under his skin again.

Just a little while longer. He'd get go back to them soon, it'll be fine.

There wasn't any windows to see them, and Kei shivered before rubbing at his arms in self-assurance. This wasn't the place for a panic attack. Calm down.

Easy for himself to say when his stress levels were through the roof.

Fortunately he didn't need to wait for long, and soon the boy behind the counter called him over again, a large paper bag in his hands which he offered to Kei.

Finally!

"Thank you," Kei began to say as he reached for the bag, gripped it tight around the bottom and pressed it to his chest. The heat coming from inside already warmed Kei up, and the smell grew more intense with how close it was. It smelled of home, and Kei could not wait to taste it.

He was about to leave when the boy stumbled suddenly on his feet, knocking over an ornament on the counter onto the floor. Kei gasped in fright, then worry, but the boy waved his hand at him.

"'s okay, I just recovered from the flu," the boy assured him, pressing a hand to his temple. "Still feel a little faint. Sorry about that."

"Are you going to be alright?" Kei asked, concerned for this stranger.

"I'll be fine," the boy assured. He called another name into the kitchen, before turning back to Kei and said; "Thank you for coming!"

Out of instinct Kei bowed shallowly to the boy, and turned to the door, only crossing its threshold when he saw the cashier being taken care of by the same old man that had first greeted him.

The incident was pushed to the back of his mind the moment he caught sight of his companions sitting by the Gecko's wheels. Their sight truly calmed him, and Kei found himself picking up the pace. Tadashi noticed him first, and waved an enthusiastic hand over his head, just as Shoyo bounced up and bounded across the parking lot till he made it to Kei's side.

"Did you get it!?" he chirped excitedly. "Did you!?"

"Relax, shrimp, I've got it," Kei told him smugly. "Where's my thank you?"

"Thank you!" Shoyo almost shouted, trotting beside him happily though the fire in his eyes was still missing.  _Where was it? When will it come back?_ "It does smell like home!"

"Yeah, it does."

He was greeted with the same level of enthusiasm from the other two, and soon found himself being rushed into Gecko's massive trunk, where they all slept. If only they had a  _ kotatsu _ ; that would've been _wonderful_. Instead, they sat cross-legged in a circle, Shoyo on Kei's right and Tadashi on his left; and even Tobio climbed over the seats to join them, a quiet look of excited anticipation painted on his face.

"They didn't have any onigiri," Kei prefaced, if only to get the bad news out of the way, but he was already pulling a plastic box out from the bag. "But they did have everything else. I think this is Katsudon; so it's for you."

The look upon Tadashi's face was enough to make him fall in love with him all over again.

Shoyo and Hitoka had similar looks, both of them were practically vibrating with excitement as he handed them both their meals. He plucked out the cans of juice and handed them out too, before handing Tobio his pork curry.

"I've got something else for you," Kei said, and Tobio perked up expectantly, and his eyes lit up when Kei handed him a carton of milk.

"Kei you didn't!" Tobio gasped, reaching out to take the carton, almost disbelieving when he took it into his hands.

"Yes I did," Kei smiled at him, content to just look at his pretty, happy face. That look suit him; if only Kei could see it more often.

"You've reunited him with his long-lost love!" Tadashi teased.

"Together at last," Hitoka joined in, also smiling brightly.

"I haven't drank milk at all this year!" Tobio protested, his lips falling to a pout. The glimmer in his eyes never disappeared.

"Japan should be afraid- you're going to drink all of their milk supply when we get back!" Shoyo joined in, and ducked at the setter lunged for his head.

"Don't fight over lunch!" immediately Tadashi scolded him, then turned to the open dish in front of him and clapped his hands twice. "Thanks for the food!"

The other four immediately followed his example, settling down at last. They pulled apart their chopsticks, and with barely any unnecessary breaths; dug in.

If Kei had thought the smell was powerful enough to send him home; he did not know how to possibly describe the taste. The first mouthful set him alight, and he almost didn't want to swallow it in fear of the taste disappearing too soon. And when he did, it warmed him from the inside, thawing what this cruel winter had frozen. This was just a little taste of home; something Kei had not realised he'd missed until this very moment.

Home seemed much closer than ever before now.

They are going home. This was evidence of it.

"I think going out to a fancy restaurant is high up on the list of our things to do when we get back," Hitoka piped up, mouth full to the brim. She looked a little like a hamster- goodness she was cute.

"Speak for yourself- I'm begging my mum to make me her home-cooked egg-fried-rice after this," Shoyo replied, also with a full mouth. "I'm eating whatever she cooks; I'm never fussing again."

Kei was the one who had the politeness to swallow before speaking. "I for one will be buying out our town's bakery's entire supply of strawberry shortcake." He grinned at Tadashi. "What about we also stop by that one cafe beside the photo-prints store? With the coffee and your carrot cake?"

"Mhmm!" Tadashi nodded. "Their carrot-cake is the best. Didn't they start selling ice-cream too?"

"I think they did."

"I hope they didn't get rid of the vending machine behind the school," Tobio put in. "They sold the best milk in that one." He paused for a moment. "There were these weird chocolate milk drinks they sold for a while; the ones in the yellow cans. Hands down the best chocolate milk I've ever drank."

"I hope Ukai-sensei still sells us the pork-buns from his shop! Those were the best!" Shoyo cheered. "Think of it! We're going to be eating like this every day when we get home!"

"Every day," Tobio echoed longingly, and took another bite, as if he almost couldn't fathom it.

"But a fancy restaurant does sound nice-" Tadashi turned to Hitoka to give her a smile. "Maybe when we first come back; like a massive celebration that we've made it."

"Yeah," Hitoka nodded in agreement. "There's this one my mum took me to once; I don't remember it's name, but I do remember where it was- I think it was at least five-star. Goodness their food was good." She giggled. "We have so much to do when we get back!"

"Well, we have missed out on a lot," Kei told her. "It's okay. It's not as if we have a deadline to accomplish all of these things. We're just seventeen- we have our whole lives still ahead of us." He took a sip of his apple juice. "I'm still fond of your 'forest-hotel-scenic-onsen-getaway' idea. That sounds like a dream."

He was met with nodding heads, and once again they fell preoccupied with eating, until Kei felt Shoyo's metal elbow prod slightly into his side.

"Can I have some of yours?"

Kei gave him a glare. "You have your own!"

"If I can have some of yours, you can have some mine," Shoyo bargained, holding out his plastic  _ chirirenge _ filled with rice as an offering.

Honestly how could Kei say no? Before Shoyo could retreat his hand he swept up the ' _ renge _ in his mouth and pulled back with everything Shoyo had offered him, flashing him a shit-eating smirk when he caught the ginger's bewildered gaze.

The egg-over-rice tasted amazing.

"What, you still want my teriyaki?", he teased, and Shoyo seemed to snap out of it and nodded eagerly. Kei offered him a liberal amount, and Shoyo ate it all up with a grateful grumble.

He flipped when another finger prodded him at the side, only to find Tadashi already scooping a piece of Katsudon onto his chopsticks. "Can I have some of yours too?"

That was how they gave up having their own meals, instead transforming their meal into a mini-buffet. An interesting combination, and produced some interesting results, but Kei would say tasting five different versions of home was better than one. The Gecko now carried the smell of home too; and hopefully would for a while.

Tobio, who was now in a much better mood, had volunteered to help Hitoka with the map; and Kei was more than glad to let him. A full stomach made him drowsy, even if it was the middle of the afternoon, so he relaxed contently between Shoyo and Tadashi once more, huddling into their warmth.

Kei never liked the cold; and now that he was warm inside and out, he felt happy. Like, emotionally happy. God, it was weird feeling  that again.

Shoyo and Tadashi smelled like home too; the former made Kei's lap into a pillow, his short stature allowing him to curl up completely over the two seats, allowing Kei to tangle his hand into his orange locks; the latter lay against him, wrapping one arm around his waist, the other joining his in Shoyo's hair. As Tadashi leaned his head onto his shoulder, Kei caught sight of his freckles.

He suddenly remembered what he'd named that playlist.

He'd named it 'Constellations'. A cheesy name; but hailing from the habit he had as a child; mapping out constellations between Tadashi's freckles, on his face, his arms, his legs. Once he'd drawn them on with a felt-tip pen, after being sick of Tadashi complaining about it all the time.

He could still see Sagittarius on his left cheek.

"So? Today's a success?" Tadashi mumbled, not even bothering to crack open his eyes. His sleepy smile just grew when Kei leaned his head against his temple.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It's been a success."

* * *

That night Kei woke up screaming again.

This night, however, he registered the arms around him much quicker, the quiet assurance that everything was okay, that they were all here and they were all okay. Shoyo's voice was wide awake, which told Kei that he too had already been awoken, not peacefully either.

"Shh," the other middle blocker hushed him, drawing up his hand to stroke it through his hair, by now knowing that Kei was absolutely weak to that. "'s okay. Just a nightmare."

"What about yours?" Kei countered, the moment he could.

Shoyo didn't answer for a while, but pulled back to look at him fully. His face looked strange in his greenish-greyscale night-vision, but not unfamiliar. "It'll be fine. They're just... They're just nightmares."

He didn't sound convincing, but Kei chose to let it go. Getting Shoyo to talk about these things was getting... increasingly difficult.

So instead Kei wrapped his own arms around him, and brought him in close again. He was about to bury his face in his chest, but Shoyo's hands stopped him.

"Are you okay?" the smaller boy asked, and Kei clicked his tongue.

"I'll be fine," he muttered.

"I don't like seeing you hurt," Shoyo confessed.

"And vice versa," Kei replied.

The furrow of Shoyo's eyebrows clued Kei in that the simpleton might've not fully understood what he had just said to him, but shuffled to cosy himself in anyways. He leaned, and before Kei could crane his neck up to see what was going on, he felt lips upon his forehead.

It was then that Kei grew aware of his genuine affection for Shoyo, and in his sleepy revelation he also grew bold. So when Shoyo pulled back he tilted his head up to press his own lips to the underside of his chin. Kei didn't know why he did it, or why he hadn't done it in the first place. Why hadn't he done it to Tadashi, or Hitoka or Tobio? Why hadn't he?

He could feel the soft laugh vibrate against his lips, and he was forced to take them away when Shoyo rest that chin on his head. There was no downside; Kei finally got to press his face into that chest just as he'd longed to do.

"Sleep," Shoyo whispered. "You'll feel better in the morning."

Kei didn't need to be told twice.


End file.
